View source for Andrew Wiles

{{short description|British mathematician who proved Fermat's Last Theorem}}
{{for|the French mathematician|André Weil}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2024}}
{{Infobox scientist
| honorific_prefix  = Sir
| name              = Andrew Wiles
| birth_name        = Andrew John Wiles
| honorific_suffix  = {{postnominals|country=GBR|KBE|FRS|size=100}}
| image             = Andrew wiles1-3.jpg
| caption           = Wiles in 2005
| birth_date        = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1953|4|11}}
| birth_place       = [[Cambridge]], England
| field             = [[Mathematics]]
| work_institutions = {{Plainlist|
* [[University of Oxford]]
* [[Princeton University]]}}
| education         = [[Merton College, Oxford]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>[[Clare College, Cambridge]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])
| doctoral_advisor  = [[John Coates (mathematician)|John Coates]]<ref name="mathgene"/><ref name=wphd/>
| doctoral_students = {{Plainlist|
* [[Manjul Bhargava]]
* [[Brian Conrad]]
* [[Ehud de Shalit]]
* [[Fred Diamond]]
* [[Ritabrata Munshi]]
* [[Karl Rubin]]
* [[Christopher Skinner]]
* [[Richard Taylor (mathematician)|Richard Taylor]]<ref name="mathgene">{{MathGenealogy}}</ref>
* [[Vinayak Vatsal]]}}
| thesis_title      = Reciprocity Laws and the Conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer
| thesis_year       = 1979
| thesis_url        = http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.477263
| known_for         = Proving the [[Taniyama–Shimura conjecture]] for semistable elliptic curves, thereby proving [[Fermat's Last Theorem]]<br/>Proving the [[main conjecture of Iwasawa theory]]
| prizes            = {{Plainlist|
* [[Whitehead Prize]] <small>(1988)</small>
* [[Rolf Schock Prizes|Rolf Schock Prize]] <small>(1995)</small>
* [[Ostrowski Prize]] <small>(1995)</small>
* [[Fermat Prize]] <small>(1995)</small>
* [[Wolf Prize in Mathematics|Wolf Prize]] <small>(1995/96)</small>
* [[Royal Medal]] <small>(1996)</small>
* [[NAS Award in Mathematics]] <small>(1996)</small>
* [[Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences]] <small>(1996)</small>
* [[Cole Prize]] <small>(1997)</small>
* [[MacArthur Fellows Program|MacArthur Fellowship]] <small>(1997)</small>
* [[Wolfskehl Prize]] <small>(1997)</small>
* [[Fields Medal#Landmarks|IMU Silver Plaque]] <small>(1998)</small>
* [[King Faisal International Prize|King Faisal International Prize in Science]] <small>(1998)</small>
* [[Shaw Prize]] <small>(2005)</small>
* [[Abel Prize]] <small>(2016)</small>
* [[Copley Medal]] <small>(2017)</small><ref name ="Copley"/>
* [[De Morgan Medal]] <small>(2019)</small>}}
}}
'''Sir Andrew John Wiles''' (born 11 April 1953) is an English mathematician and a [[Royal Society]] Research Professor at the [[University of Oxford]], specialising in [[number theory]]. He is best known for [[Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem|proving Fermat's Last Theorem]], for which he was awarded the 2016 [[Abel Prize]] and the 2017 [[Copley Medal]] and for which he was appointed a [[Order of the British Empire|Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] in 2000.<ref name ="Copley">{{Cite web|url=https://royalsociety.org/news/2017/05/mathematician-andrew-wiles-wins-royal-society-copley-medal | title=Mathematician Sir Andrew Wiles FRS wins the Royal Society's prestigious Copley Medal|website=The Royal Society|access-date=27 May 2017}}</ref> In 2018, Wiles was appointed the first [[Regius Professor of Mathematics]] at Oxford.<ref name="RProf">{{cite web |url=http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-05-31-sir-andrew-wiles-appointed-first-regius-professor-mathematics-oxford |title=Sir Andrew Wiles appointed first Regius Professor of Mathematics at Oxford |work=News & Events |publisher=[[University of Oxford]] |date=2018-05-31 |access-date=2018-06-01 }}</ref> Wiles is also a [[MacArthur Fellows Program|1997 MacArthur Fellow]].

Wiles was born in Cambridge to theologian [[Maurice Frank Wiles]] and Patricia Wiles. While spending much of his childhood in Nigeria, Wiles developed an interest in mathematics and in Fermat's Last Theorem in particular. After moving to Oxford and graduating from there in 1974, he worked on unifying [[Galois representation]]s, [[elliptic curve]]s and [[modular form]]s, starting with [[Barry Mazur]]'s generalizations of [[Iwasawa theory]]. In the early 1980s, Wiles spent a few years at the [[University of Cambridge]] before moving to [[Princeton University]], where he worked on expanding out and applying [[Hilbert modular form]]s. In 1986, upon reading [[Ken Ribet]]'s seminal work on Fermat's Last Theorem, Wiles set out to prove the [[modularity theorem]] for semistable elliptic curves, which implied Fermat's Last Theorem. By 1993, he had been able to convince a knowledgeable colleague that he had a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, though a flaw was subsequently discovered. After an insight on 19 September 1994, Wiles and his student [[Richard Taylor (mathematician)|Richard Taylor]] were able to circumvent the flaw, and published the results in 1995, to widespread acclaim.

In proving Fermat's Last Theorem, Wiles developed new tools for mathematicians to begin unifying disparate ideas and theorems. His former student Taylor along with three other mathematicians were able to prove the full modularity theorem by 2000, using Wiles' work. Upon receiving the Abel Prize in 2016, Wiles reflected on his legacy, expressing his belief that he did not just prove Fermat's Last Theorem, but pushed the whole of mathematics as a field towards the [[Langlands program]] of unifying number theory.<ref name="Sample 2016">{{cite web | last=Sample | first=Ian | title=Abel prize won by Oxford professor for Fermat's Last Theorem proof | website=The Guardian | date=15 March 2016 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/mar/15/british-mathematician-andrew-wiles-abel-prize-fermats-last-theorem-proof | access-date=20 November 2023}}</ref>

==Education and early life==
Wiles was born on 11 April 1953 in [[Cambridge, England|Cambridge]], England, the son of [[Maurice Wiles|Maurice Frank Wiles]] (1923–2005) and Patricia Wiles (née Mowll). From 1952 to 1955, his father worked as the chaplain at [[Ridley Hall, Cambridge]], and later became the [[Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Oxford]].<ref name="whoswho">{{Who's Who |title=Wiles, Sir Andrew (John ) |id=U39819| doi =10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.39819 | author=Anon|year=2017|edition = online [[Oxford University Press]]|location=Oxford}}</ref>

Wiles began his formal schooling in Nigeria, while living there as a very young boy with his parents. However, according to letters written by his parents, for at least the first several months after he was supposed to be attending classes, he refused to go. From that fact, Wiles himself concluded that in his earliest years, he was not enthusiastic about spending time in academic institutions. In an interview with [[Nadia Hasnaoui]] in 2021, he said he trusted the letters, yet he could not remember a time when he did not enjoy solving mathematical problems.<ref name="YouTube Interview">{{cite web | title=Interview with Andrew Wiles |publisher=The Abel Prize| via=YouTube | url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baUlp5EWhCk |date=10 March 2021| access-date=15 November 2023}}</ref>

Wiles attended [[King's College School, Cambridge]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Alumni |url=https://www.kcs.cambs.sch.uk/about-us/alumni/ |publisher=King's College School, Cambridge |access-date=1 February 2022}}</ref> and [[The Leys School, Cambridge]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Old Leysian Prof Sir Andrew Wiles wins the Copley Medal |url=https://www.theleys.net/media/news/article/234/old-leysian-prof-sir-andrew-wiles-wins-the-copley-medal |publisher=The Leys & St Faith's Schools Foundation |access-date=1 February 2022 |date=2 November 2017}}</ref> Wiles told [[WGBH-TV]] in 1999 that he came across Fermat's Last Theorem on his way home from school when he was 10 years old. He stopped at his local library where he found a book ''The Last Problem'', by [[Eric Temple Bell]], about the theorem.<ref name=pbs/> Fascinated by the existence of a theorem that was so easy to state that he, a ten-year-old, could understand it, but that no one had proven, he decided to be the first person to prove it. However, he soon realised that his knowledge was too limited, so he abandoned his childhood dream until it was brought back to his attention at the age of 33 by [[Ken Ribet]]'s 1986 proof of the [[epsilon conjecture]], which [[Gerhard Frey (mathematician)|Gerhard Frey]] had previously linked to Fermat's equation.<ref>{{cite book|last=Chang|first=Sooyoung|title=Academic Genealogy of Mathematicians|date=2011|isbn=9789814282291|page=207|publisher=World Scientific |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4siw31DPONUC&pg=PA207}}</ref>

==Early career==
In 1974, Wiles earned his [[bachelor's degree]] in [[mathematics]] at [[Merton College, Oxford]].<ref name="whoswho"/> Wiles's graduate research was guided by [[John Coates (mathematician)|John Coates]], beginning in the summer of 1975. Together they worked on the arithmetic of [[elliptic curve]]s with [[complex multiplication]] by the methods of [[Iwasawa theory]]. He further worked with [[Barry Mazur]] on the [[main conjecture of Iwasawa theory]] over the [[rational number]]s, and soon afterward, he generalised this result to [[totally real field]]s.<ref name="royal"/><ref name=nas>{{cite web|title=Andrew Wiles|url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/3001745.html|publisher=[[National Academy of Sciences]]|access-date=16 March 2016}}</ref>

In 1980, Wiles earned a PhD while at [[Clare College, Cambridge]].<ref name=wphd>{{cite thesis|degree=PhD|publisher=University of Cambridge|title=Reciprocity laws and the conjecture of Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer|first= Andrew John|last=Wiles|date=1978|url=http://ulmss-newton.lib.cam.ac.uk/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=15254|id={{EThOS|uk.bl.ethos.477263}}|via=Cambridge University Library|oclc=500589130}}</ref> After a stay at the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] in [[Princeton, New Jersey]], in 1981, Wiles became a [[Princeton University Department of Mathematics|Professor of Mathematics]] at [[Princeton University]].<ref name=andrew>{{cite web|first1=John J.|last1=O'Connor|first2=Edmund F.|last2=Robertson|author2-link=Edmund F. Robertson|title=Andrew John Wiles Biography|url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Wiles/|publisher=[[MacTutor History of Mathematics archive]]|date=September 2009|access-date=1 February 2022}}</ref>

In 1985–86, Wiles was a [[Guggenheim Fellow]] at the [[Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques]] near Paris and at the {{lang|fr|[[École Normale Supérieure]]|italic=no}}.<ref name=andrew/>

In 1989, Wiles was elected to the [[Royal Society]]. At that point according to his election certificate, he had been working "on the construction of ℓ-adic representations attached to [[Hilbert modular form]]s, and has applied these to prove the 'main conjecture' for cyclotomic extensions of totally real fields".<ref name="royal">{{cite web|url=https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27EC%2F1989%2F39%27)|title=EC/1989/39: Wiles, Sir Andrew John|publisher=[[The Royal Society]]|access-date=16 March 2016|archive-date=13 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150713195729/https://collections.royalsociety.org/DServe.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqSearch=(RefNo==%27EC%2F1989%2F39%27)|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem==
{{main|Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem}}
From 1988 to 1990, Wiles was a Royal Society Research Professor at the [[University of Oxford]], and then he returned to Princeton.
From 1994 to 2009, Wiles was a [[Eugene Higgins|Eugene Higgins Professor]] at Princeton.

Starting in mid-1986, based on successive progress of the previous few years of [[Gerhard Frey (mathematician)|Gerhard Frey]], [[Jean-Pierre Serre]] and [[Ken Ribet]], it became clear that [[Fermat's Last Theorem]] (the statement that no three [[positive number|positive]] [[integer]]s {{math|''a''}}, {{math|''b''}}, and {{math|''c''}} satisfy the equation {{math|1=''a''<sup>''n''</sup> + ''b''<sup>''n''</sup> = ''c''<sup>''n''</sup>}} for any integer value of {{math|''n''}} greater than {{math|2}}) could be proven as a [[corollary]] of a limited form of the [[modularity theorem]] (unproven at the time and then known as the "Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture").<ref name="Darmon 1999"/> The modularity theorem involved elliptic curves, which was also Wiles's own specialist area, and stated that all such curves have a modular form associated with them.<ref>{{cite web|last=Brown|first=Peter|title=How Math's Most Famous Proof Nearly Broke|url=http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/how-maths-most-famous-proof-nearly-broke|publisher=Nautilus|access-date=16 March 2016|date=28 May 2015|archive-date=15 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315201345/http://nautil.us/issue/24/error/how-maths-most-famous-proof-nearly-broke|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="NYT-20220131">{{cite news |last=Broad |first=William J. |authorlink=William Broad |title=Profiles in Science – The Texas Oil Heir Who Took on Math's Impossible Dare – James M. Vaughn Jr., wielding a fortune, argues that he brought about the Fermat breakthrough after the best and brightest had failed for centuries to solve the puzzle. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/31/science/james-vaughn-fermat-theorem.html |date=31 January 2022 |work=[[The New York Times]] |accessdate=2 February 2022 }}</ref> These curves can be thought of as mathematical objects resembling solutions for a torus' surface, and if Fermat's Last Theorem were false and solutions existed, "a peculiar curve would result". A proof of the theorem therefore would involve showing that such a curve would not exist.<ref name=nyt/>

The conjecture was seen by contemporary mathematicians as important, but extraordinarily difficult or perhaps impossible to prove.<ref name="Singh">[[Simon Singh]] (1997). ''[[Fermat's Last Theorem (book)|Fermat’s Last Theorem]]''. {{ISBN|1-85702-521-0}}</ref>{{rp|203–205, 223, 226}} For example, Wiles's ex-supervisor [[John H. Coates|John Coates]] stated that it seemed "impossible to actually prove",<ref name="Singh"/>{{rp|226}} and [[Ken Ribet]] considered himself "one of the vast majority of people who believed [it] was completely inaccessible", adding that "Andrew Wiles was probably one of the few people on earth who had the audacity to dream that you can actually go and prove [it]."<ref name="Singh"/>{{rp|223}}

Despite this, Wiles, with his from-childhood fascination with Fermat's Last Theorem, decided to undertake the challenge of proving the conjecture, at least to the extent needed for [[Frey's elliptic curve|Frey's curve]].<ref name="Singh"/>{{rp|226}} He dedicated all of his research time to this problem for over six years in near-total secrecy, covering up his efforts by releasing prior work in small segments as separate papers and confiding only in his wife.<ref name="Singh"/>{{rp|229–230}}

Wiles' research involved creating a [[proof by contradiction]] of Fermat's Last Theorem, which Ribet in his [[Ribet's theorem|1986 work]] had found to have an elliptic curve and thus an associated modular form if true. Starting by assuming that the theorem was incorrect, Wiles then contradicted the Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture as formulated under that assumption, with Ribet's theorem (which stated that if {{math|''n''}} were a [[prime number]], no such elliptic curve could have a modular form, so no odd prime counterexample to Fermat's equation could exist). Wiles also proved that the conjecture applied to the special case known as the [[semistable elliptic curve]]s to which Fermat's equation was tied. In other words, Wiles had found that the Taniyama–Shimura–Weil conjecture was true in the case of Fermat's equation, and Ribet's finding (that the conjecture holding for semistable elliptic curves could mean Fermat's Last Theorem is true) prevailed, thus proving Fermat's Last Theorem.<ref>{{Citation|last=Stevens|first=Glenn H.|author-link=Glenn H. Stevens|url= https://math.bu.edu/people/ghs/papers/FermatOverview.pdf|title=An Overview of the Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem|date=n.d.|publisher=Boston University}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Boston|first=Nick|url= https://people.math.wisc.edu/~nboston/869.pdf|date=Spring 2003|title=Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem|publisher=University of Wisconsin–Madison}}</ref><ref name="Darmon 1999"/>

In June 1993, he presented his proof to the public for the first time at a conference in Cambridge. [[Gina Kolata]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' summed up the presentation as follows:
{{Blockquote|He gave a lecture a day on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday with the title "Modular Forms, Elliptic Curves and Galois Representations". There was no hint in the title that Fermat's last theorem would be discussed, Dr. Ribet said. ... Finally, at the end of his third lecture, Dr. Wiles concluded that he had proved a general case of the Taniyama conjecture. Then, seemingly as an afterthought, he noted that that meant that Fermat's last theorem was true. Q.E.D.<ref name=nyt>{{cite news|last=Kolata|first=Gina|author-link=Gina Kolata|title=At Last, Shout of 'Eureka!' In Age-Old Math Mystery|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/24/us/at-last-shout-of-eureka-in-age-old-math-mystery.html|access-date=21 January 2013|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|date=24 June 1993|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20231120054908/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/06/24/us/at-last-shout-of-eureka-in-age-old-math-mystery.html|archive-date=20 November 2023}}</ref>}}
In August 1993, it was discovered that the proof contained a flaw in several areas, related to properties of the [[Selmer group]] and use of a tool called an [[Euler system]].<ref name="Faltings 1995" /><ref name="Cipra 1995">{{cite journal| last=Cipra|first=Barry Arthur |author-link=Barry Arthur Cipra|title=Princeton Mathematician Looks Back on Fermat Proof|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|volume=268|date=1995|issue=5214 |pages=1133–1134 |doi=10.1126/science.268.5214.1133 |pmid=17840622 |bibcode=1995Sci...268.1133C }}</ref> Wiles tried and failed for over a year to repair his proof. According to Wiles, the crucial idea for circumventing—rather than closing—this area came to him on 19 September 1994, when he was on the verge of giving up. The circumvention used [[Galois representation]]s to replace elliptic curves, reduced the problem to a [[class number formula]] and solved it, among other matters, all using [[Victor Kolyvagin]]'s ideas as a basis for fixing [[Matthias Flach (mathematician)|Matthias Flach]]'s approach with Iwasawa theory.<ref name="Cipra 1995" /><ref name="Faltings 1995">{{cite journal | last=Faltings|first=Gerd|author-link=Gerd Faltings|title=The Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by R. Taylor and A. Wiles| publisher=[[American Mathematical Society]]| date=July 1995|volume=42|issue=7 | url= https://www.ams.org/notices/199507/faltings.pdf|page=743-746 |journal=Notices of the AMS | access-date=1 August 2024}}</ref> Together with his former student [[Richard Taylor (mathematician)|Richard Taylor]], Wiles published a second paper which contained the circumvention and thus completed the proof. Both papers were published in May 1995 in a dedicated issue of the ''[[Annals of Mathematics]].''<ref name="Wiles 1995">{{Cite journal|last=Wiles|first=Andrew|date=May 1995|title=Issue 3|jstor=i310703|journal=[[Annals of Mathematics]]|volume=141|pages=1–551}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Are mathematicians finally satisfied with Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem? Why has this theorem been so difficult to prove?|url=http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-mathematicians-finall/|work=[[Scientific American]]|access-date=16 March 2016|date=21 October 1999}}</ref>

==Later career==
In 2011, Wiles rejoined the University of Oxford as Royal Society Research Professor.<ref name="andrew" />

In May 2018, Wiles was appointed [[Regius Professor]] of Mathematics at Oxford, the first in the university's history.<ref name="RProf" />

==Legacy==
[[File:Czech stamp 2000 m259.jpg|thumb|Czech stamp from 2000, celebrating Wiles' proof of Fermat's Last Theorem ]]
Wiles' work has been used in many fields of mathematics. Notably, in 1999, three of his former students, [[Richard Taylor (mathematician)|Richard Taylor]], [[Brian Conrad]], and [[Fred Diamond]], working with [[Christophe Breuil]], built upon Wiles' proof to prove the full modularity theorem.<ref name="Devlin 1999">{{cite web|last=Devlin|first=Keith |author-link=Keith Devlin| title=Beyond Fermat's last theorem | website=The Guardian | date=21 July 1999 | url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/1999/jul/21/technology | access-date=20 November 2023}}</ref><ref name="Darmon 1999">{{cite journal|last=Darmon|first=Henri|author-link=Henri Darmon|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/199911/comm-darmon.pdf|journal=Notices of the AMS|publisher=[[American Mathematical Society]]|title= A Proof of the Full Shimura- Taniyama-Weil Conjecture Is Announced|date=December 1999|access-date=1 August 2024|issue=11|volume=46|page=1397-1401}}</ref> Wiles's doctoral students have also included [[Manjul Bhargava]] (2014 winner of the [[Fields Medal]]), [[Ehud de Shalit]], [[Ritabrata Munshi]] (winner of the [[Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology|SSB Prize]] and [[ICTP Ramanujan Prize]]), [[Karl Rubin]] (son of [[Vera Rubin]]), [[Christopher Skinner]], and [[Vinayak Vatsal]] (2007 winner of the [[Coxeter–James Prize]]).

In 2016, upon receiving the [[Abel Prize]], Wiles said about his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, "The methods that solved it opened up a new way of attacking one of the big webs of conjectures of contemporary mathematics called the [[Langlands program|Langlands Program]], which as a grand vision tries to unify different branches of mathematics. It’s given us a new way to look at that".<ref name="Sample 2016"/>

==Awards and honours==
[[File:Wiles vor Sockel.JPG|thumb|Andrew Wiles in front of the statue of [[Pierre de Fermat]] in [[Beaumont-de-Lomagne]] in 1995, Fermat's birthplace in southern France]]
Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem has stood up to the scrutiny of the world's other mathematical experts. Wiles was interviewed for an episode of the [[BBC]] documentary series ''[[Horizon (BBC TV series)|Horizon]]''<ref name="horizon">{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074rxx |title=BBC TWO, Horizon Fermat's Last Theorem |publisher=BBC |date=16 December 2010 |access-date=12 June 2014}}</ref> about Fermat's Last Theorem. This was broadcast as an episode of the PBS science television series ''[[Nova (American TV series)|Nova]]'' with the title "The Proof".<ref name=pbs>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/andrew-wiles-fermat/|title=Andrew Wiles on Solving Fermat|date=November 2000 |publisher=[[WGBH-TV|WGBH]]|access-date=16 March 2016}}</ref> His work and life are also described in great detail in [[Simon Singh]]'s popular book ''[[Fermat's Last Theorem (book)|Fermat's Last Theorem]]''.

In 1988, Wiles was awarded the Junior [[Whitehead Prize]] of the [[London Mathematical Society]] (1988).<ref name="whoswho"/> In 1989, he was elected a [[List of Fellows of the Royal Society elected in 1989|Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS)]]<ref name=royale>{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117014255/https://royalsociety.org/people/andrew-wiles-12529/|access-date=1 February 2022 |archive-date=17 November 2015 |url=https://royalsociety.org/people/andrew-wiles-12529/ |title=Sir Andrew Wiles KBE FRS |publisher=[[Royal Society]] |location=London|quote=One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under [[Creative Commons license|Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License]].}}</ref><ref name="royal"/>

In 1994, Wiles was elected member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=Andrew J. Wiles|url=https://www.amacad.org/person/andrew-j-wiles|access-date=2021-12-10|website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences}}</ref> Upon completing his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem in 1995, he was awarded the [[Schock Prize]],<ref name=andrew/> [[Fermat Prize]],<ref name=shaw/> and [[Wolf Prize in Mathematics]] that year.<ref name=andrew/> Wiles was elected a [[Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences]]<ref name=nas/> and won an [[NAS Award in Mathematics]] from the National Academy of Sciences,<ref name=NASMath>{{cite web|title=NAS Award in Mathematics|url=http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_mathematics|publisher=[[National Academy of Sciences]]|access-date=13 February 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101229195210/http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_mathematics| archive-date= 29 December 2010}}</ref> the [[Royal Medal]], and the [[Ostrowski Prize]] in 1996.<ref>[https://www.ams.org/notices/199606/people.pdf Wiles Receives Ostrowski Prize]. [[American Mathematical Society]]. Retrieved 16 March 2016.</ref> He won the [[American Mathematical Society]]'s [[Cole Prize]],<ref>{{cite web|title=1997 Cole Prize, Notices of the AMS|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/199703/comm-cole.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.ams.org/notices/199703/comm-cole.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|access-date=13 April 2008|publisher=[[American Mathematical Society]]}}</ref> a [[MacArthur Fellows Program|MacArthur Fellowship]], and the [[Wolfskehl Prize]] in 1997,<ref>[https://www.ams.org/notices/199710/barner.pdf Paul Wolfskehl and the Wolfskehl Prize]. [[American Mathematical Society]]. Retrieved 16 March 2016.</ref> and was elected member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] that year.<ref>{{Cite web|title=APS Member History|url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Andrew+Wiles&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced|access-date=2021-12-10|website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

In 1998, Wiles was awarded a silver plaque from the [[International Mathematical Union]] recognising his achievements, in place of the [[Fields Medal]], which is restricted to those under the age of 40 (Wiles was 41 when he proved the theorem in 1994).<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-wiles |title=Andrew J. Wiles Awarded the "IMU Silver Plaque" |publisher=[[American Mathematical Society]] |date=11 April 1953 |access-date=12 June 2014}}</ref> That same year, he was awarded the [[King Faisal Foundation#King Faisal International Prize|King Faisal Prize]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/199805/comm-wiles.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.ams.org/notices/199805/comm-wiles.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Andrew Wiles Receives Faisal Prize |publisher=[[American Mathematical Society]] |access-date=12 June 2014}}</ref> along with the [[Clay Research Award]] in 1999,<ref name=andrew/> the year the [[asteroid]] [[9999 Wiles]] was named after him.<ref>{{cite web|title=JPL Small-Body Database Browser|url=http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=9999+Wiles|publisher=[[NASA]]|access-date=11 May 2009}}</ref>

In 2000, he was awarded [[Order of the British Empire|Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire]].<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=55710 |date=31 December 1999 |page=34 |supp=y}}</ref> In 2004, Wiles won the Premio Pitagora.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lami.unical.it/premiopitagora.php |title=Premio Pitagora |publisher=[[University of Calabria]] |language=it|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140115040247/http://www.lami.unical.it/premiopitagora.php|archive-date=15 January 2014 |access-date=16 March 2016}}</ref> In 2005, he won the [[Shaw Prize]].<ref name=shaw>[https://www.ams.org/notices/200508/comm-shaw.pdf Wiles Receives 2005 Shaw Prize]. [[American Mathematical Society]]. Retrieved 16 March 2016.</ref>

The building at the [[University of Oxford]] housing the [[Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford|Mathematical Institute]] was named after Wiles in 2013.<ref>{{cite web|title=Mathematical Institute|url=https://www.ox.ac.uk/about/developing-oxford/roq/buildings/maths|publisher=[[University of Oxford]]|access-date=16 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160113045103/http://www.ox.ac.uk/about/developing-oxford/roq/buildings/maths|archive-date=13 January 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> Later that year he won the [[Abel Prize]].<ref name="natureAbel">{{cite journal|last=Castelvecchi|first=Davide|title=Fermat's last theorem earns Andrew Wiles the Abel Prize|journal=Nature|volume=531|issue=7594|year=2016|pages=287|doi=10.1038/nature.2016.19552|pmid=26983518|bibcode=2016Natur.531..287C|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="associatedpress">{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/british-mathematician-sir-andrew-wiles-gets-abel-math-prize/2016/03/15/41146a7e-eaa9-11e5-a9ce-681055c7a05f_story.html |title=British mathematician Sir Andrew Wiles gets Abel math prize |agency=Associated Press |date=15 March 2016 |newspaper=The Washington Post|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315135239/https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/british-mathematician-sir-andrew-wiles-gets-abel-math-prize/2016/03/15/41146a7e-eaa9-11e5-a9ce-681055c7a05f_story.html |archive-date=15 March 2016 }}</ref><ref name="sheenamckenzie,cnn">{{cite news |last=McKenzie |first=Sheena |date=16 March 2016 |title=300-year-old math question solved, professor wins $700k – CNN |publisher=CNN|url=http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/16/europe/fermats-last-theorem-solved-math-abel-prize/index.html}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.businessinsider.com/andrew-wiles-abel-prize-fermats-last-theorem-2016-3|title=A British mathematician just won a $700,000 prize for solving this fascinating centuries-old math problem 22 years ago|website=Business Insider|access-date=19 March 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://time.com/4263916/andrew-wiles-abel-prize-fermat-theorem/|title=Andrew Wiles Wins 2016 Abel Prize for Fermat's Last Theorem|last=Iyengar|first=Rishi|magazine=Time|access-date=19 March 2016}}</ref> In 2017, Wiles won the [[Copley Medal]].<ref name ="Copley"/> In 2019, he won the [[De Morgan Medal]].<ref name=st-andrews>{{cite web|url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Honours/LMSDeMorganMedal/|title=Winners of the De Morgan Medal of the LMS|work=MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive|publisher=St Andrews College|access-date=2024-01-29}}</ref>

== See also ==

* [[André Weil]]

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{sister project links|d=Q184433|c=Andrew Wiles|n=no|q=Andrew Wiles|b=no|v=no|voy=no|m=no|mw=no|wikt=no|s=no|species=no}}
*[https://www.maths.ox.ac.uk/people/andrew.wiles Profile from Oxford]
*[https://dof.princeton.edu/about/clerk-faculty/emeritus/andrew-john-wiles Profile from Princeton] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211105042955/https://dof.princeton.edu/about/clerk-faculty/emeritus/andrew-john-wiles |date=5 November 2021 }}

{{Abel Prize laureates}}
{{Copley_Medallists_2001–2050}}
{{Schock Prize laureates}}
{{Wolf Prize in Mathematics}}
{{Shaw Prize}}
{{De Morgan Medallists}}
{{FRS 1989}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiles, Andrew John}}
[[Category:1953 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century English mathematicians]]
[[Category:21st-century English mathematicians]]
[[Category:Abel Prize laureates]]
[[Category:Alumni of Clare College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Alumni of King's College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:Alumni of Merton College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Clay Research Award recipients]]
[[Category:Fellows of Merton College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Fermat's Last Theorem]]
[[Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:MacArthur Fellows]]
[[Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society]]
[[Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:British number theorists]]
[[Category:People educated at The Leys School]]
[[Category:Mathematicians from Cambridge]]
[[Category:Princeton University faculty]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Copley Medal]]
[[Category:Regius Professors of Mathematics (University of Oxford)]]
[[Category:Rolf Schock Prize laureates]]
[[Category:Royal Medal winners]]
[[Category:Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study]]
[[Category:Whitehead Prize winners]]
[[Category:Wolf Prize in Mathematics laureates]]