Newsgroups: sci.math
From: hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: 27 Jun 92 18:54:31 GMT
Subject: Re: Fermat's Last Theorem

endic...@carina.unm.edu (Mark Endicott) asks:

> A few years ago some mathematician announced a proof of Fermat's
> Last Theor[e]m....  Does anyone know what happened, and where I can
> find the proof?

You are probably thinking of the work of Yoichi Miyaoka (Tokyo
Metropolitan University, then at the Max Planck Institute for
Mathematics, Bonn).  He thought he had the outline of a proof, and it
got into the press in March, 1988.  But flaws were found.  Some of the
gaps in the outline were known to be false in similar cases, so his
plan of proof could not work.  By the end of March it was clear there
was no proof.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil