3 ms·

1. You mean "David Samuel(S.) Cohen", one of the writers for The Simpsons and Futurama, who decided to make his name "David X. Cohen" (not his legal name) becau

1. You mean "David Samuel(S.) Cohen", one of the writers for The Simpsons and Futurama, who decided to make his name "David X. Cohen" (not his legal name) because the Writer's Guild does not accept duplicate names? 2. Yes, people do believe he had a proof somewhere in his mind, considering the rest of his track record. Whether that proof was correct is definitely up for debate.

gweinberg 12y ago
Well, according to a mathematician friend of mine, he definitely did not. He went to a lot of trouble later in his life to prove things that would have followed trivially if he had had such a proof. Besides, the result is interesting enough that he obviously would have published the proof if it existed. Most likely he thought he had a proof when he made the margin note, but later found a flaw. He would have felt no need to issue a retraction, since he had never formally claimed to have a proof in the first place.
aaron695 12y ago
> Whether that proof was correct is definitely up for debate. No, no it's not. You're not really understanding mathematics, which is fair enough, but also the fundamentals of science and human nature with a statement like that.
- neohaven 12y ago
  Fermat's Last Theorem is proven true, is it not? Without having seen the proof that came to Fermat's mind, I don't think it's anyone's absolute opinion on the matter that "It's not up for debate" and that Fermat's proof being potentially true is "missing the fundamentals of science". If you may re-read my previous post, here's the thing people disagree on : "Did Fermat write this having a correct proof of it on his mind or not?" I do not think anyone can say an absolute "yes" or "no" to this. Although it does point to "no", considering that the mathematics used to prove FLT are far beyond Fermat's time.

3 ms·

1. You mean "David Samuel(S.) Cohen", one of the writers for The Simpsons and Futurama, who decided to make his name "David X. Cohen" (not his legal name) becau

by neohaven 12y ago

gweinberg 12y ago
Well, according to a mathematician friend of mine, he definitely did not. He went to a lot of trouble later in his life to prove things that would have followed trivially if he had had such a proof. Besides, the result is interesting enough that he obviously would have published the proof if it existed. Most likely he thought he had a proof when he made the margin note, but later found a flaw. He would have felt no need to issue a retraction, since he had never formally claimed to have a proof in the first place.
aaron695 12y ago
> Whether that proof was correct is definitely up for debate. No, no it's not. You're not really understanding mathematics, which is fair enough, but also the fundamentals of science and human nature with a statement like that.
- neohaven 12y ago
  Fermat's Last Theorem is proven true, is it not? Without having seen the proof that came to Fermat's mind, I don't think it's anyone's absolute opinion on the matter that "It's not up for debate" and that Fermat's proof being potentially true is "missing the fundamentals of science". If you may re-read my previous post, here's the thing people disagree on : "Did Fermat write this having a correct proof of it on his mind or not?" I do not think anyone can say an absolute "yes" or "no" to this. Although it does point to "no", considering that the mathematics used to prove FLT are far beyond Fermat's time.