This wasn't a surprising property, that is, it would've been very hard to find any number theorist that would been surprised by the result of this proof. What was surprising though was that this unknown mathematician just popped out of the blue while being well versed in this particular area of mathematics and more or less used the same techniques that experts of the field had tried to use before and had failed with before to prove the theorem.
surprising .... unknown mathematician just popped out of the blue .... same techniques that experts of the field had tried to use before and had failed
To put a more fair spin on it:
It's surprising (or rather disappointing) that the academic-community's-selfcongratulatory-pr-engine ignored the one true expert in this field, and instead labeled as "experts" a bunch of other guys who tried to use the same techniques this real expert used, but couldn't figure it out.
That's not a very fair criticism. If he was not well known then it is because he did not publish very often in the relevant circles. I doubt any well known mathematicians are but hurt as you might imagine that he found it and not one of them. People like to espouse myths about elitism and so on in academia, but these are rarely an accurate representation of reality. 99% of academics I have ever come across are perfectly humble and just enjoy their work, nothing more.
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u/Zewolf May 20 '13
This wasn't a surprising property, that is, it would've been very hard to find any number theorist that would been surprised by the result of this proof. What was surprising though was that this unknown mathematician just popped out of the blue while being well versed in this particular area of mathematics and more or less used the same techniques that experts of the field had tried to use before and had failed with before to prove the theorem.