[mhomde]

I'm still intrigued by the possibility of a more "elegant" solution to Fermat being out there. Wiles approach seems like brute forcing it by stitching together different proofs. It seems very implausible that Fermat actually had an actual solution, but it should be possible that one exists.

I guess the incentive to find it is much less now though when the theorem has been proved.

[jlarcombe]

"Brute forcing it by stitching together different proofs"? Seems a bit of a harsh assessment! My (limited) understanding is that Wiles' proof introduced some hugely powerful new techniques related to modular forms and opened up a lot of new areas of study.

[mhomde]

I didn't mean to trivialize it, it's an extremely impressive accomplishment for sure. The documentary was very interesting as well, recommended