Number crunching vs. number theory: computers and FLT, from Kummer to SWAC (1850--1960), and beyond
The article may serve as some kind of model for a historical study, investigating secondary unfruitful individual attempts that may even arrive at deadends. It covers a long period in the history of Fermat's last theorem [FLT] beginning essentially with the original papers due to Ernst Kummer and ending up with the introduction of electronics especially by Harry Vandiver and Dick Lehner, at AWAC (Standards Western Automatic Computers). The author also stresses the importance of later achievements built on ideas developed by Sophie Germain, and performed by Leonard Adleman, Roger Heath-Brown and Étienne Fouvry, i.e., there exists an infinity of prime numbers for which FLT holds. Obviously Andrew Wiles' complete proof takes totally different ways. The author comments saying that number theory defeated number crunching.
scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5322539
scientific article