What Does It Feel Like To Do Maths? | Andrew Wiles | Plus Magazine | 1st December 2016

Andrew Wiles, who proved Fermat’s last theorem, talks about the inner life of a mathematician. “It’s bad to have too good a memory if you want to be a mathematician. You need to forget the way you approached a problem the previous time. It’s a bit like evolution. If you remembered all the failed attempts before, you wouldn’t try them again. Because I have a slightly bad memory I’ll probably try essentially the same thing again and then I realise I was just missing this one little thing”