3 September 2005

Andrew Wiles’ CUHK Lecture Drew an Audience of 1,500

Professor Andrew John Wiles, winner of the Shaw Prize in Mathematics 2005 gave his public lecture at Sir Run Run Shaw Hall of The Chinese University of Hong Kong today. The Hall was packed with an audience of 1,500 who are secondary and university students, teachers, and mathematics enthusiasts in the community. Participants were all fascinated by Professor Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, a 350-year old question.

Born in 1953, Professor Andrew Wiles is currently Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University. He earned his B.A. from Oxford University (1974) and Ph.D. from Cambridge University, UK (1979). Following in the footsteps of his father, Professor Wiles went on to become an assistant professor at Harvard University. In 1982 he became a lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Studies and professor of mathematics at Princeton. In 1994 Professor Wiles was appointed Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton.

Professor Wiles was captivated by Fermat’s Last Theorem when he was as young as 10. He astonished the world's mathematical community in 1994 when he unveiled his solution to Fermat's Last Theorem.

For his outstanding work, he has been bestowed numerous accolades and awards. He was elected as a foreign member to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, receiving its mathematics prize. He also received the Schock Prize in Mathematics from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Prix Fermat from the Universite Paul Sabatier, the Wolf Prize in Mathematics, and in 2005, the Shaw Prize.