I live in South Korea, and study physics in a graduate school.
Please do not ask me why Mr. Lee tells me it.
Yesterday, a simple proof for the Fermat's last theorem is sent me from Lee, Jae-yul. Mr. Lee claims that he found the proof that is simpler than Andrew Wiles's one.
However, Korean Mathematical Society(KMS) has rejected his proof because of some logical errors.
You can read the proof here.
http://kin.naver.com/knowhow/entry.php?d1id=10&dir_id=10&eid=2pYt7E1aLQKsxwS7Wlm5occibr9egobB&qb=wMzA58Cy
(Though the page is korean, it includes the English version of the proof. If you can't find it, I can give you other URL.)
As you may know, the proof seems to be simpler than A. Wiles's.
KMS explains the error by the following.
the Fermat's last theorem : for any non-zero integer n, there does not exist positive integer triple (a,b,c) satisfying a^n + b^n = c^n
I call [{2^(n-1)}^(1/n)+…+{2^2}^(1/n)+2^(1/n)](N)^(1/n) (*)
His claim : It is TRIVIAL that (*) must be irrational for an integer N.
This is the important step for completeness of the proof as you can find it in the proof.
In my thought, (*) should be irrational but that is not trivial. That has to be proven.
However, Mr. Lee holds that with no proof. Although KMS and SO many people request the proof for the step, he never did give it. He says just "that is trivial."
How do you think about the proof?
Is that trivial?
ps. to J. Y. Lee. Do not submit your statements to here.
Leave your greetings.
This Mr. Lee has been spamming graduate schools all over the world. This was the second time our department got hit by this e-mail.
2008/06/24 16:29 [ Permalink : Modify/Delete : Reply ]I can't really say anything about the version that Mr. Lee submitted to the KMS, since the copy I got is in English, and presumeably the one he submitted to KMS woud be in Korean?
First off, it is incomprehensible.
Not only is the English very bad, but the notation Mr. Lee uses makes things 10 times more difficult to understand what he is trying to say.
The structure of the proofs and the paper is very confusing -- it's hard to tell exactly what is trying to prove or whether his trying to do a proof by contradiction or whatever.
He spends at least two pages showing the most trivial things that even a middle schooler can verify about the FLT, such as showing that FLT is meaning less for n=0. But when it comes to the important, difficult proofs, he asserts that it's "obviously" true. Whoever questions this, on his blog or through e-mail are met with responses, which range from, "You know a lot, but you lack wisdom," or "You didn't read the proof," or "Why don't you go back and study some middle school math."
To make things worse, his paper is littered with typos. It's almost as if he himself didn't read the paper. The copy I got recently and the one I got months ago were exactly the same.
Putting the incomprehensibility aside, is there anything salvageable there? The answer: not really. Sure, he did some high school algebra using his complicated notations. But none of these are meaningful.
He also makes many false statements, which I'm not sure is a typo, a mistranslation, or just complete nonsense.
It's hard to believe that this man, who apparently came up with a prove almost 5~6 years ago, have been circulating this typo-littered piece of garbage all over the world, telling everyone how the KMS is trying to screw him over.
The fact that he hasn't even corrected the simple mistakes in his paper, the fact that he calls Wiles's proof a "guess," saying his proof is "perfect," spamming other departments, suing the KMS for not accepting his paper, tells me that Mr. Lee is a very arrogant man.
I find both Mr. Lee and his "proofs" despicable and disgraceful.
Sorry for the long rant.
Thanks for your comment.
2008/06/25 11:53 [ Permalink : Modify/Delete ]Actually, shoutwing that expression is irrational isn't really the crucial part of the proof. If that was the case, Mr. Lee's proof should be valid for many different values of $n$, for which one can verify that expression is irrational.
2008/06/26 11:11 [ Permalink : Modify/Delete : Reply ]The proofs for n=3, 5, 7 etc were all proven with great difficulty and sophisticated techiques. If this proof works even for these three cases, it would be something.