I had a look at my copy of Simon Singh’s “Fermat’s last theorem” (amazing book by the way) and three things are pretty clear :
Wiles’ proof makes extensive use of papers published in the years 1986-1993 while he was working on his proof, so he was certainly not isolated during this time.
he was unable to find the error in his proof, and had help from Taylor to correct the error.
So if he had not been so obsessed with “being the one to prove Fermat’s last theorem”, the proof would have been finished a couple years sooner.
So yeah, the lonely genius is a myth and a dangerous one. Long live the collaborative genius who works with his fellow geniuses !
I had a look at my copy of Simon Singh’s “Fermat’s last theorem” (amazing book by the way) and three things are pretty clear :
Wiles’ proof makes extensive use of papers published in the years 1986-1993 while he was working on his proof, so he was certainly not isolated during this time.
he was unable to find the error in his proof, and had help from Taylor to correct the error.
So if he had not been so obsessed with “being the one to prove Fermat’s last theorem”, the proof would have been finished a couple years sooner.
So yeah, the lonely genius is a myth and a dangerous one. Long live the collaborative genius who works with his fellow geniuses !