Andrew Wiles

The Institute is home to an intriguing collection of marginalia. Appearing in books and offprints, on photographs and squeezes, and on notecards, it transforms what might seem like static artifacts into dynamic records of scholarly engagement, creating a multilayered conversation that can even stretch across millennia. 

The fundamental lemma has been described as a gross understatement. Says Andrew Wiles, a Visitor in the School of Mathematics and an Institute Trustee, “At first, it was thought to be a minor irritant, but it subsequently became clear that it was not a lemma but rather a central problem in the field.”