Persistence and Endurance
----Junxiao Shen (Y12)
Introduction
One hundred years ago, a ship floats on the sea, lonely and helpless. Aman with a grey coat stood on the deck, thinking: this trip is going to take a long time. When he first stepped onto the ship, he knew this was going to be a long and hard trip. This man is Ernest Shackleton. 50 years later, another adventure happens in Britain. However this is a trip which floats on paper and ink – known as the proof to Fermat’s last theorem. This theorem was first proposed by Fermat in the form of a note scribbled in the margin of his copy of the ancient Greek text arithmetic by Diophantus. First of all, Fermat’s last theorem states that no three positive integers a , b , c can satisfy the equation + = No one could prove this until Andrew Wiles found the solution in 1994. Great success, regardless of whether mathematics or in exploration, all have enormous similarities. Ernest Shackleton was a polar explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. It is Andrew Wiles who was the first person to provide a complete proof for Fermat’s Last Theorem. Although they are experts in a completely different areas, they both developed their interests in their childhood. For an instance, Andrew Wiles began to attempt to prove Fermat’s last theorem using textbook methods at the age of ten. After they both grew up, they soon started out on the careers they would like to be. Shackleton became shipmaster and an explorer while Wiles earned a PhD from Cambridge Mathematics department in 1980. However, there will always be difficulty and frustration throughout the way to success. Shackleton’s ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and was slowly crushed, which was a great frustration for Shackleton. Wiles also experienced the difficulty when he need to solve one single conjecture for a whole year or more. However, they had never gave it up and to the contrary, they became stronger and more experienced because of those difficulties. “Where there is a will there is a way” –quoted from a Chinese ancient saying. A strong will seems to be a common characteristic for every great people ever since, including Wiles and Shackleton. Whatever the situation is, they will always think out a way to make a bright future, to help them out of this impasse. What’s more, what they have learned from their own experience and only work by themselves would not be enough ,how they reach success or get rid of difficulties is not only be helped by others or working in a team but also learn from the base built by the great previous pioneer. Wiles might not have proved Fermat last theorem if there was no other great mathematicians
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