$712,000 for cracking 300-year-old puzzle

London - "Fermat's equation was my passion from an early age, and solving it gave me an overwhelming sense of fulfillment."

An Oxford University professor has won a £500,000 prize for cracking a 300-year-old mystery mathematical theorem described as an "epochal moment" for academics.
Sir Andrew Wiles has been awarded the Abel Prize by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for his proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, which he published in 1994.
The 62-year-old professor will pick up the award and a cheque for six million Norwegian Krone from Crown Prince Haakon of Norway in Oslo in May, for an achievement that the academy described as "an epochal moment for mathematics".
"Fermat's equation was my passion from an early age, and solving it gave me an overwhelming sense of fulfilment," Sir Andrew was quoted as saying by The Telegraph.
First formulated by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermat in 1637, the theorem states: There are no whole number solutions to the equation xn + yn = zn when n is greater than 2. - PTI