Harvard Professor Uncovers Fermat's Penultimate Theorem

	Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)

After years of painstaking research, Professor Judith K Schultz of Harvard University has finally solved one of the oldest puzzles in mathematics: what was Fermat's Penultimate Theorem?

"I can't believe I've finally done it. Now I can go out and get myself a life," joked a delighted Professor Schultz at a news conference yesterday.

Named after Pierre de Fermat, the famous 17th Century French mathematician, Fermat's Penultimate Theorem has been described as the Lost Ark of Mathematics: a precious law which had somehow been misplaced by mankind.

"This is a tremendous achievement," said her colleague, Professor Dwight Winkler. "Judy Schultz has been relentless - some would say obsessive - in her quest. But she got there in the end, which is all that counts."

"It's like discovering a lost play by Shakespeare, or a new painting by Vermeer," said Professor Tom Andrews, science historian.

Professor Schultz explained how she had finally managed to track down the missing theorem: "It was a stroke of pure luck," she said modestly: "I was reading Fermat's personal copy of Diophantus's Arithmetica - the one in which Fermat jotted down a note about his famous Last Theorem - and I flicked back a page, and, hey-presto, there it was! I should have thought of it earlier, I suppose."

When asked to explain to a lay audience what the theorem meant, Professor Schultz replied, "I said I'd found it; I didn't say I understood the damn thing."