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xponential
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Since the vast majority of the conjectures have either been finally proven true or not proven false. I don't think there are many examples of conjectures that have deluded mathematicians for decades but turned out to be false.
What benefits or implications did we get from proving Fermat's last theorem after more than 350 years? I like to think of famous conjectures as the well-established scientific theories. Einstein's special theory of relativity, for instance, has shown very accurate results when examined in the lab but that doesn't make us certain that it is 100% absolutely true just because no counter example proved otherwise. Why do a lot of mathematicians care about proving long-standing conjectures when it is shown very very hard to find a counter example to the validity of the conjectures?
Thanks,
What benefits or implications did we get from proving Fermat's last theorem after more than 350 years? I like to think of famous conjectures as the well-established scientific theories. Einstein's special theory of relativity, for instance, has shown very accurate results when examined in the lab but that doesn't make us certain that it is 100% absolutely true just because no counter example proved otherwise. Why do a lot of mathematicians care about proving long-standing conjectures when it is shown very very hard to find a counter example to the validity of the conjectures?
Thanks,