The University of Oxford's new mathematics building will be named the Andrew Wiles Building, in line with the wish expressed by the principal benefactors at the time of their original gift in 2005, and in celebration of one of Oxford's most distinguished mathematicians.
Professor Sir Andrew Wiles, KBE, FRS, read mathematics at Merton College, Oxford, coming up in 1971. He went on to do his PhD under John Coates at Cambridge before moving to Princeton, first to the Institute for Advanced Study and then as a Professor at Princeton University. He was in Oxford as a Royal Society Research Professor from 1988 to 1990, and returned again to Oxford in 2011 to a Royal Society 2010 Anniversary Chair. He was knighted in 2000.
Andrew Wiles has made huge contributions to number theory, starting with his work on the arithmetic of elliptic curves with John Coates and on Iwasawa Theory over the rational numbers with Barry Mazur. But above all, he is known for his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem, published in 1995.
The asteroid formerly known as 4196 T-2 is also named in his honour.