In 2001 we saw the umpteenth attempt of James Harris to prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

Note that apparently James does no longer support this argument, although he never has acknowledged that he was wrong.

As before I will parafrase the proof to proof something that is false. Again, you can lay this proof side by side with James' proof at his page. I have comments interspeced in red.


Given xp + yp = n.zp with some integer n.
I arbitrarily choose
x2+y2+vz2 = 0(mod (x2+y2+vz2)) to work with, where x,y and z are nonzero and comprime, p is an odd prime, and v is an integer.
Note, mentioning that x, y and z are coprime indicates that they are intended to be all integers; otherwise that makes no sense.
Subtracting vz2 from both sides of the second expression gives
x2+y2 = -vz2(mod (x2+y2+vz2)).
Raising both sides to the p gives
(x2+y2)p = -(vz2)p (mod (x2+y2+vz2)).
Expanding the left side and collecting gives
x2p + px2y2(x2+y2)Q{x2,y2} + y2p = -(vz2)p (mod (x2+y2+vz2)).
px2y2(x2+y2)Q{x2,y2} - 2xpyp = -(vp+n2)z2p (mod (x2+y2+vz2)).
Here the original equation (xp+yp=n.zp) is used. Square both sides and eliminate x2p+y2p.
And I use Q as a shorthand for the full expansions, for instance
xp +pxy(x+y)Q{x,y} + yp = (x+y)p
The use Q and Q', here and later, is just a shorthand and the verbiage surrounding them is quite superfluous; I let it go by without comment.
Q is always associated with a pth power expansion.
(vp+n2)z2p - px2y2(vz2)Q{x2,y2} - 2xpyp = 0(mod (x2+y2+vz2)).
Now, Q{ x2,y2} can be expressed in terms of z and xy only.
For instance, with p=5, Q{x2,y2} = x4 +x2y2 + y4 = v2 z4 - x2y2
(vp+n2)z2p - px2y2(vz2)Q'{z2,x2y2} - 2xpyp = 0(mod (x2+y2+vz2))
where Q' represents that expansion.
This terminates the Q verbiage.
And upto this point everything is quite correct (although the formulation leaves something to be desired), also there is no proof for his assertion about Q', only an example, but a proof is not so very difficult.
Then from Gauss' Fundamental Theorem of Algebra the polynomial has p factors which can be expressed like az2 + bxy, where a and b are members of a ring, and
a1...ap = (vp+n) and b1...bp = -2.
Now this is not what Gauß' Fundamental Theorem of Algebra actually says. The proper formulation is:
Every polynomial of degree n with complex coefficients has n roots in the complex numbers.
In this case, because the equation is homogeneous in x, y and z, and because x and y always come together with the same power, we can see it as a polynomial in z2/xy, and so the FTA applies. Rewriting we can get what James states, except that where he writes a ring he should actually write the complex numbers, because that is the only thing that FTA guarantees.
In an article, Arturo Magidin actually proved that the numbers ai and bi can be chosen to be algebraic integers when the coefficients are integer (and his result is in fact a bit stronger). So the ring James could use would be the ring of algebraic integers, and I think that a smaller ring is not generally applicable.
Each of the p factors share factors with the modulus, which can be seen by using v=0, x=1 and y=1, which gives 2 on the left side and 2 as the modulus for every p odd prime.
Now I do not understand this at all. When we apply the substitutions in the last equation in the Q and Q' verbiage above we find on the right:
0 (mod 2)
On the left we find:
n2z2p - 2
So we have:
n2z2p - 2 = 0 (mod 2)
saying only that the left side is even.
This leaves something open: the modular equation only holds when xp+yp=zp but this is false for integral z when x=1 and y=1. So this seems to imply that z is no longer integral, but in that case saying that the left side of the equation above is even can not apply.
Furthermore, the factors (aiz2 + bixy) can at best be algebraic integers. So saying their product is even does not say much.
Now something strange is happening, James suddenly shifts to v=-1, so the arguments above can not apply (the leading term of the polynomial in his original proof becomes 0, so it is a polynomial of smaller degree. He gets at a conclusion, and uses that to conclude something about arbitrary v. Note that although the formulas will not be the same with the integer factor n used above, the arguments are the same!
Now, using v=-1 many of those factors have integers for a and b, which is most easily seen with p=3, where you get
x2y2(3z2-2xy)=0(mod (x2+y2-z2)).
In general you have x2y2(pz2Q{x2,y2} - 2xp-2yp-2) which must share integer factors with the modulus x2+y2-z2. Let F represent those odd integers factors that are not shared with x or y (if somehow F were to equal 1, I can use a modulus of z2+y2+vx2, or z2+x2+vy2).
Note that this sharing holds if and only if xp+yp=n.zp.
Note also that it is not clear at all that shifting names of x, y and z will indeed result in an F that is not equal to 1.
But, now let v = -1 + mF, where m is a nonzero counting number, which means the modulus STILL has that same factor. F is an integer factor while the a's from before are not necessarily, but it is now clear that each b must be a factor of F as well, which contradicts F being odd since it forces it to be a factor of 2.
I admit that I do not understand this completely, nevertheless, this is false. Because the best we can say about the ai and bi, is that they are algebraic integers, and because there are algebraic integers that are units, there is nothing strange about a b being a divisor of an odd integer and of 2.
Therefore the modulus is not rational, which means that x,y and z cannot be integers.
Therefore this is bogus.
Proof complete.
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It's worth mentioning again that
(vp+n2)z2p - px2y2(vz2)Q{x2,y2} - 2xpyp = 0(mod (x2+y2+vz2)).
is a partial factorization. That is, it means that x2+y2+vz2 must be a factor of the polynomial on the left.
It is also worth mentioning that this is only true whenever the condition xp+yp=zp holds. So it must be a factor, not for all and every x, y and z, but only whenever x, y and z meet the condition. Moreover, whenever x, y and z do not meet the condition, the second expression can not be a factor of the first expression.
See also an earlier attempt of James Harris.