Japanese mathematician who in 1988 developed the outline of a proof of Fermat's last theorem, a problem that had bedeviled mathematicians for over 300 years. This theorem, inspired by the Pythagorean theorem for determining the length of the sides of a right triangle (a²+b²=c²), states that there is no solution for similar problems with exponents greater than 2. Proof of this theorem was not, however, provided by Fermat. Unfortunately, Miyaoka's outline was later shown to have some flaws.