From owner-qed Fri Nov 18 11:16:15 1994 Received: from localhost (listserv@localhost) by antares.mcs.anl.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) id LAA22307 for qed-out; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 11:14:33 -0600 Received: from cs.albany.edu (root@cs.albany.edu [128.204.2.7]) by antares.mcs.anl.gov (8.6.4/8.6.4) with ESMTP id LAA22301 for ; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 11:14:20 -0600 Received: from ramanujan.cs.albany.edu (mosh@ramanujan.cs.albany.edu [128.204.2.57]) by cs.albany.edu (8.6.9/HUB01) with ESMTP id MAA16888; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:13:11 -0500 From: Mohsin Ahmed Received: (mosh@localhost) by ramanujan.cs.albany.edu (8.6.9/CLI) id MAA05844; Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:12:57 -0500 Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 12:12:57 -0500 Message-Id: <199411181712.MAA05844@ramanujan.cs.albany.edu> To: LYBRHED@delphi.com CC: qed@mcs.anl.gov In-reply-to: <01HJM0E70GAQ9FME92@delphi.com> (message from Lyle Burkhead on Fri, 18 Nov 1994 04:03:06 -0500 (EST)) Subject: Re: The Fermat-Wiles Theorem Reply-to: mosh@cs.albany.edu Sender: owner-qed@mcs.anl.gov Precedence: bulk . Date: Fri, 18 Nov 1994 04:03:06 -0500 (EST) . From: Lyle Burkhead . . Airplanes crash. Proofs don't. Last year I asked if anyone could . give an example of a theorem which was published in a textbook . or reputable journal, accepted by the mathematicians who read . it and used by them in further work, and then found to be . false. No one ever came up with such an example. Accepted/published proofs can be wrong, for example: Legendre published a series of proofs of Euclid's parallel postulate in his twelve editions of his influential "Elements de Geometry" from 1794-1823. Some others to prove the same include Ptolemy and Wallis. A proof of the four color theorem was published by A.B.Kempe in 1879 and accepted for eleven years until P.J.Heawood found a flaw in it. -- - Mohsin.