“In a 1967 letter to the number theorist André Weil, a 30-year-old mathematician named Robert Langlands outlined striking conjectures that predicted a correspondence between two objects from completely different fields of math. The Langlands Program was born.”
“Today, it’s one of the most ambitious mathematical feats ever attempted. Its symmetries imply deep, powerful and beautiful connections between the most important branches of mathematics. Many mathematicians agree that it has the potential to solve some of math’s most intractable problems, in time, becoming a kind of ‘grand unified theory of mathematics.'”
Rutgers University math professor Alex Kontorovich tells the complex but fascinating story behind some of the patterns and symmetries suggested by the Langlands Program, “including how Andrew Wiles solved Fermat’s Last Theorem,” in this animation by Quanta Magazine.
And though the video is formula-rich, the visual storytelling helps nonexperts follow along.
Other historic bridge builders mentioned in the video include math prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan, Belgian mathematician Pierre Delign, hobbyist mathematician Pierre de Fermat, Japanese mathematicians Yutaka Taniyama and Goro Shimura, British mathematician Richard Taylor, and German mathematician Gerhard Frey.
Watch more math history videos on TKSST, including:
• Symmetry, an Eames animated short for the 1961 Mathematica exhibition
• Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem, the paradox at the heart of mathematics
• The Universal Pattern Popping Up in Math, Physics, and Biology
• How many ways are there to prove the Pythagorean theorem?
• The Story of Zero – Getting Something from Nothing
• Greek Legacy: How the Ancient Greeks shaped modern mathematics
This Webby award-winning video collection exists to help teachers, librarians, and families spark kid wonder and curiosity. TKSST features smarter, more meaningful content than what's usually served up by YouTube's algorithms, and amplifies the creators who make that content.
Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.