This note might deserve a little more emphasis. It's routine in history that problems are solved only once the tools become available, which is supported by a stunning list of coinciding discoveries:
Fermat's last theorem was an open problem for some 400 years, but was solved within two decades (1993) after the introduction of the Frey curve (1975).
This note might deserve a little more emphasis. It's routine in history that problems are solved only once the tools become available, which is supported by a stunning list of coinciding discoveries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_discoveries
Fermat's last theorem was an open problem for some 400 years, but was solved within two decades (1993) after the introduction of the Frey curve (1975).