From owner-qed Fri Nov 18 10:17:32 1994 Received: from localhost (listserv@localhost) by antares.mcs.anl.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) id KAA21351 for qed-out; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 10:16:52 -0600 Received: from oracorp.com (scylla.oracorp.com [192.76.175.102]) by antares.mcs.anl.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) with SMTP id KAA21346 for ; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 10:16:40 -0600 From: hoove@oracorp.com Received: from euterpe.oracorp.com by oracorp.com (4.1/2.1-ORA Corporation) id AA09010; Fri, 18 Nov 94 11:16:12 EST Date: Fri, 18 Nov 94 11:16:10 EST Received: by euterpe.oracorp.com (4.1/1.3-ORA Corporation) id AA12005; Fri, 18 Nov 94 11:16:10 EST Message-Id: <9411181616.AA12005@euterpe.oracorp.com> To: qed@mcs.anl.gov Subject: Re: The Fermat-Wiles Theorem Sender: owner-qed@mcs.anl.gov Precedence: bulk Lyle Burkhead writes: Airplanes crash. Proofs don't. Last year I asked if anyone could give an example of a theorem which was published in a textbook or reputable journal, accepted by the mathematicians who read it and used by them in further work, and then found to be false. No one ever came up with such an example. I believe that an early "proof" of the four color theorem stood for 10-15 years before it was found to be incorrect. Perhaps more to the point, mathematicians are shy of using results, even their own, if the methods used to prove those results seem suspicious. A formal proof would allay those suspicions. D.N. Hoover a.k.a. hoove@oracorp.com