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If FLT hadn't already been proven then Feynman's argument would explain away the substantial numerical evidence collected in it's favor. In other words, it woul
by sajid 10y ago
If FLT hadn't already been proven then Feynman's argument would explain away the substantial numerical evidence collected in it's favor. In other words, it would suggest that FLT is just a statistical accident and true for no particular reason.
Of course, we now know that FLT is related to deep ideas in number theory.
- qmalzp 10y agoI mean Feynman's argument really seems to show that it should hold for sufficiently large N. I think one could reasonably argue that it's a statistical accident that FLT holds for N >= 3 as opposed to say, N >= 100. I think even Wiles' proof only works for N sufficiently large (at least N >= 5). Small N of course were handled by earlier results.