Background of andrew wiles

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Jon Keating, presenting him for the honorary degree, said [45]:-

Andrew's story exemplifies the academic values we all aspire to: intellectual courage and ambition, passion, intense hard work, relentless determination, and a focus on the most profound ideas and problems.

Wiles' interest in Fermat's Last Theorem began while he was studying at King's College School.

individuals, regardless of race, nationality and religious belief, who have achieved significant breakthrough in academic and scientific research or application, and whose work has resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind.

The 2005 Shaw Prize for Mathematical Sciences was made to Wiles:-

... Andrew was a member of North A House, located on the upper quad, opposite the chapel.

for spectacular contributions to number theory and related fields, major advances on fundamental conjectures, and for settling Fermat's last theorem.

Also in 1996, he was elected as a foreign member to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, receiving its mathematics prize. He [44]:-

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https://www.ias.edu/scholars/andrew-wiles

Andrew Wiles, List and Biographies of Great Mathematicians, Famous Mathematicians(2019). He is one of the few mathematicians who is well-known outside of mathematics, and was recognised with a knighthood in 2000.

He is a hero to an entire generation of mathematicians. As recently as 2015, Nuno Freitas, Bao V Le Hung, and Samir Siksek proved the analogous modularity statement over real quadratic number fields. He had a preliminary year before starting research [61]:-

I had a year, a preliminary year, in which I just studied a range of subjects and then I could do a special paper.

When the results were written up for publication, however, a subtle error was discovered.
https://www.newton.ac.uk/news/ini-news/wiles-flt-30/

N Woodhouse, The Andrew Wiles Building: A short history, Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford.
https://royalsociety.org/news/2017/05/mathematician-andrew-wiles-wins-royal-society-copley-medal/

S McKenzie, Professor wins $700k for solving 300-year-old math equation, Cable News Network(17 March 2016).

This time, his proof was met with widespread acclaim, and mathematicians around the world hailed it as a monumental achievement.

Andrew Wiles’ proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem was based on the Taniyama-Shimura-Weil conjecture, which connects elliptic curves and modular forms.

He then spent a while as a Visiting Professor at the Sonderforschungsbereich Theoretische Mathematik in Bonn, taking up the appointment in the spring of 1981.

At the end of the final lecture he announced he had a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. From that moment, that was what I was working on.
https://wolffund.org.il/2018/12/10/andrew-j-wiles/