Part 4/9:
The Taniyama-Shimura Conjecture’s Role
In a pivotal development, mathematician Ken Ribet connected this conjecture to Fermat’s Last Theorem, showing that if Fermat's theorem were false, certain elliptic curves would have to exist, contradicting the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture. This meant that proving the conjecture would simultaneously prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, setting the stage for Wiles’s future work.
However, the conjecture remained unproven, and the tragic suicide of Taniyama in 1958 added a somber backdrop to this mathematical saga.