Colloquium

3:30 p.m., Friday

Math 100



Christopher M. Skinner

Institute for Advanced Study

Princeton



The diophantine equation a^n+b^n=2c^2

Call an integral solution (a,b,c) to the equation in the title "primitive" if a, b, and c have no common divisor. Using an analysis of modular forms and their associated Galois representations one can show that for "large" n the only primitive solutions satisfy ab=1 or -1.



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