tcmoore4

Books have too much information. I find I learn what a book is about just by reading magazine reviews or articles about the topic, or seeing the author interviewed on TV. They summarize their thesis and give some examples in 5 minutes. What more do you need to know, and how much more will you remember if you actually read the book?!

Since you’ve already spent the money, I say read the Introduction and the chapter titles. Then do a quick precise of the whole thing, reading parts you find interesting or think may be relevant. You can knock out a book in 30-60 minutes.

Then leave it on your shelf (don’t donate it), and act like you’ve read the whole thing. You can probably pull it off as well as 90% of the people who have actually read the book. This isn’t pretentious, it’s efficient.

This means understanding what Modular Forms and Elliptic Curves are in their own right. Then trying to understand Wiles’ proof that they are the same thing.

The keys were the Taniyama/Shimura Conjecture, which guessed that Modular Forms and Elliptic Curves where the same thing. Then in mid-80s, Frey and Ribet (from Berkeley – Go Bears!) proved that if Taniyama/Shimura was correct, Fermat’s Last Theorem would also be true.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Taniyama-ShimuraConjecture.html

I know there is a majority in the country who would join me, so why can’t it be done. There shouldn’t be a need to compromise on these 2 fundamental issues.