On June 23, 1993, the mathematician Andrew Wiles gave the last of three lectures detailing his solution to Fermat’s last theorem, a problem that had remained unsolved for three and a half centuries.

Here's a scene from "The Royale," an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that aired March 27, 1989. In it, Captain Jean-Luc Picard tells his First Officer, Commander Riker, about his work in ...