Poincaré week in Göttingen, 22–28 april 1909
pp. 195-202
in: , A richer picture of mathematics, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
When Paul Wolfskehl died in 1906, his will established a prize for the first mathematician who could supply a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, or give a counterexample refuting it. The interest from this prize money was later used to bring world-renowned mathematicians to Göttingen to deliver a series of lectures. Hilbert was apparently very pleased with this arrangement, and once jested that the only thing that kept him from proving Fermat's famous conjecture was the thought of killing the goose that laid these golden eggs.