Paul Wolfskehl

Paul Friedrich Wolfskehl (1856-1906) was a mathematician born in Darmstadt. He bequeathed 100 000 marks (equivalent to £1 million in today’s money) to the first person to prove or disprove Fermat's Last Theorem.

He was the younger of the two sons of the rich Jewish banker Joseph Carl Theodor Wolfskehl. His older brother, the Jurist Wilhelm Otto Wolfskehl, took over the family bank after the death of his father, and Paul became a doctor of medicine. [1]

About this time he began to suffer from multiple sclerosis [2], And also attended some number theory lectures by Ernst Eduard Kummer

For many years, the accepted version about the prize concerned Wolfskehl’s romantic attachment to a mysterious young lady, who has never been identified. Depressingly for Wolfskehl, the woman rejected him, and he was left in such a state of utter despair that he decided to commit suicide. He would shoot himself through the head at the stroke of midnight, but to while away the intervening hours he went to his library and began browsing through the mathematical publications.

It was not long before he found himself staring at the work of Ernst Kummer, who had recently tried to demonstrate that there was a fundament flaw in an attempted proof of the Last Theorem by Augustin Cauchy. Wolfskehl soon became engrossed in trying to prove that Kummer was wrong, and that Cauchy’s approach could be repaired and made to work. He explored Kummer’s paper in detail, and by dawn his work was complete. The bad news, as far as mathematics was concerned, was that Kummer was right, and the Last Theorem remained in the realm of the unattainable, for the time being at least. The good news was that the appointed time of the suicide had passed, and Wolfskehl was so enthused by his calculations that he abandoned his death wish. Mathematics had renewed his desire for life. Wolfskehl rewrote his will in the light of what had happened that night - the reward of 100 000 marks was his way of repaying a debt to the conundrum that had saved his life.

This story was documented in 1969 by Philip Davis and William Chinn in their book "3.1416 and all that", who had in turn heard the story from the renowned mathematician Alexander Ostrowski. According to Davis, Professor Ostrowski himself had heard the story many years earlier and maintained that there was more to it than mere legend. As Ostrowski died in 1986, the details about his source can no longer be ascertained.

However, Prof. Dr. Klaus Barner at the Universität Gesamthochschule Kassel has published a paper in the November issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society which puts forward two other theories. First, Barner states that Wolfskehl initially undertook a career in medicine. However, soon after graduating as a doctor in 1880, he began to display the first symptoms of multiple sclerosis. He soon realized that he would not be able to practice as a doctor for very long, and so, according to Barner, Wolfskehl decided to study mathematics, a subject he would be able to pursue even when confined to a wheelchair. Consequently, the prize may have been Wolfskehl’s way of acknowledging that mathematics had offered him a new opportunity, when the onset of multiple sclerosis was forcing him to abandon his intended career.

Barner’s alternative theory claims that the motivation was not gratitude, but rather spite. Because Wolfskehl was severely invalided, his family forced him to wed, but the only woman who would marry him was Marie Fröhlich, the 53 year-old daughter of tax advisor August Fröhlich. Unfortunately, Marie turned out to be an evil shrew who made her husband’s life hell during his last years. Hence, perhaps he changed his will in January 1905 in order not to leave all of his money to his despicable wife.

Barner’s reason for researching the history behind the Wolfskehl Prize was that on June 28th, 1997, almost a century after Wolfskehl’s death, the prize was awarded to Andrew Wiles for his proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. However, the prize, which was originally worth £1 million, had suffered because of the hyperinflation which followed the First World War and the introduction of the Deutschmark in 1948, and as a result Wiles received only £30 000. As far as Wiles is concerned, the prize money is not important. Fermat’s Last Theorem had obsessed him since he was a boy, and so discovering a proof was the realization of a childhood dream.

In 1984, Eckhard G.Franz published the family tree of the Wolfskehl; family in his book "Juden als Darmstädter Bürger" Of those who had not emigrated before 1939, 10 perished in the concentration camps.

The poet Karl Wolfskehl emigrated to New Zealand

• Details about Wolfskehl from Simon Singh, author of the book "Fermat's Last Theorem"

• "From Abstraction", a BBC play

by Robert Thorogood about Wolfskehl: "Paul is young, rich and in love. So why does he lock himself in the library and refuse to open the door to anyone? But he cannot lock everyone out, and his strange and disconcerting nocturnal visitors help him to make the most important decision of his life." (Broadcast 1/11/2006)

It is 1880 and rich German industrialist Paul Wolfskehl is engaged to the woman of his dreams. But she is in love with his best friend and Paul is driven to despair.

Making the decision to kill himself, he gets his affairs in order, finishes his will, writes letters to his parents, cleans his gun and goes into the library, where he plans to shoot himself on the last stroke of midnight. But such is his efficiency that he is ready slightly ahead of the deadline, so he flicks through a couple of books and comes across Fermat's Last Theorem – a stunningly simple equation which took hundreds of years to solve.

Although he has locked himself in and refused to open the door to his anxious manservant, Stefan, and concerned brother, Otto, Paul is not alone in the library. He has two disturbing visitors, ghosts or figments of his troubled imagination: Infinity, who has seen and knows everything, and Fermat himself.

The hours pass and Infinity and Fermat explain, mock, console and educate Paul and finally persuade him of the beauty of life and living with a purpose. By dawn, he discovers that he has not only made a significant headway in solving the equation, but also rediscovered his love of life.

References

• "Dallas Banker Offers $50 000 Prize for Solution of Mathematics Problem" [3]: The Beal Conjecture: If A^x + B^y = C^z, then A, B, and C have a common factor.
• German link
• Ball and Coxeter 1987, p. 72; Barner 1997; Hoffman 1998, pp. 193-194 and 199
• Ball, W. W. R. and Coxeter, H. S. M. Mathematical Recreations and Essays, 13th ed. New York: Dover, pp. 69-73, 1987.
• Barner, K. "Paul Wolfskehl and the Wolfskehl Prize." Not. Amer. Math. Soc. 44, 1294-1303, 1997.
• Hoffman, P. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers: The Story of Paul Erdos and the Search for Mathematical Truth. New York: Hyperion, pp. 193-199, 1998.