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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

In 1994, Andrew Wiles submitted a proof [st-and.ac.uk] for Fermat's Last Theorem that has stood the test of time. The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters recognized his work [nature.com] by awarding him the 2016 Abel Prize [abelprize.no] "“for his stunning proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem by way of the modularity conjecture for semistable elliptic curves, opening a new era in number theory.”

Due to the infamy of Fermat's Last Theorem, solving it turned him into an mathematics rock star [nautil.us]. However, an interesting aspect of the approach he took in his proof, namely proving the equivalence of elliptic curves and modular forms, is regarded as his significant contribution to mathematics, not simply proving Fermat.

Wiles took a different approach: he proved the Shimura-Taniyama conjecture, a 1950s proposal that describes how two very different branches of mathematics, called elliptic curves and modular forms, are conceptually equivalent. Others had shown that proof of this equivalence would imply proof of Fermat — and, like Faltings' result, most mathematicians regard this as much more profound than Fermat’s last theorem itself.

Original Submission