h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Firstly a disclaimer: although interested in this, I don't really know any Number Theory, so these comments are just those of an (intelligent?) layman. Also, although some of these may seem a little harsh, they aren't meant like that. I think you've summarised a very complex subject into a manageable article.

1. I don't understand the reference to two classes here:

"With Sophie Germain, progress was made at a slightly higher rate -- she proved it for two infinite classes of
primes -- the Germain primes (i.e. primes such that if p is prime, then 2p+1 is prime too. 2, 3 and 5 are
examples of Germain primes). Together with Lebesgue, she was able to prove the theorem for a total of 10
of these classes."

Do you mean that the Germain primes are two classes of prime, or that she proved it for the Germain primes and some other class, too?

2. Here you have used the internet plain text convention for emphasis. Elsewhere, you have used bold or italics:

"Some years later, the german mathematician Kummer proved the theorem for all _regular_ primes -- i.e. all
primes that divide the denominator of a socalled Bernoulli number."

3. Notionalities usually take a capital letter: "German mathematician Kummer", "British mathematician Andrew Wiles".

4. Also in the sentence in 2, you need to do something about "socalled": "so-called"?

5. "richkid" should be "rich kid".

6. I think you need to re-word:

"He committed his everything he owned to a prize that was to be awarded the first person to prove FLT. (Nota bene: a
counterexample wouldn't give the prize -- only a positive proof would)"

also, personally, I wouldn't put Nota bene in full, rather use NB.

7. Could you add a footnote explaining what a Bernoulli number is.

I couldn't think of a proper wording for the sentence about Wolfskehl's will, but the rest of your comments are now incorporated.

// Mikael Johansson

My comment about Wolfskehl was more to do with the fact that it says:
"He committed his everything he owned to a prize...."

It should probably read:
"He committed everything he owned to a prize...."

I think it is generally much better now. I think I _almost_ understand what's going on. You could still do with polishing one or two bits, but that would be more something for a sub-ed to suggest as they will probably polish it anyway.