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In mathematics, a conjecture is a mathematical statement which appears likely to be true, but has not been formally proven to be true under the rules of mathematical logic. Once a conjecture is formally proven true it is elevated to the status of theorem and may be used afterwards without risk in the construction of other formal mathematical proofs. Until that time, mathematicians may use the conjecture on a provisional basis, but any resulting work is itself provisional until the underlying conjecture is cleared up. In scientific philosophy, Karl Popper pioneered the use of the term "conjecture" to indicate a proposition which is presumed to be real, true, or genuine, mostly based on inconclusive grounds, in contrast with a hypothesis (hence theory, axiom, principle), which is a testable statement based on accepted grounds. Until recently, the most famous conjecture was the mis-named Fermat's last theorem, mis-named because although Fermat claimed to have found a clever proof of it, none could be found among his notes after his death. The conjecture taunted mathematicians for over three centuries before Andrew Wiles, a Princeton University research mathematician, finally proved it in 1993, and now it may properly be called a theorem. Other famous conjectures include
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