WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?

摘要

Maths used to be a thankless pastime, the preserve of people considered eccentric recluses. It was never a route to fame or riches. But all that is changing. Hugely successful Hollywood films such as A Beautiful Mind and Good Will Hunting had mathematics at the very core of their plots. A book describing the solution of Fermat's last theorem has become a surprise bestseller. Something in the air of the 21st century is turning mathematical research into a glamorous way to spend your life. And there's money and fame on offer to prove it. Millions of dollars are available to mathematicians who can solve some of the subject's most baffling problems (see "Eyes on the prize", p 30). And from next year there will be a mathematical equivalent of 8 the Nobel Prize, in the form of the Abel Prize funded by the Norwegian government. But the world's sharpest minds have been attacking some of these problems for cen- fairies, to no avail. Will this promise of cash and glory bring on any answers?