Fermat’s Room

A stranger using the alias Fermat invites several top mathematicians to attend a convention. To accept, each participant must solve a math puzzle to earn their alias. Once solved, they are forbidden to reveal their true identities and are told to arrive alone with no cell phone. The invitation promises a chance to confront 'the greatest enigma'.

At dusk, four individuals converge at a riverbank: Galois, Hilbert, Pascal, and Oliva, each under an alias. They receive a PDA with GPS coordinates and travel instructions that direct them to an abandoned warehouse. They are told to arrive alone, with no devices, to solve the puzzles and begin the staged event.

The car from the riverbank guides them to an abandoned warehouse where a back room has been prepared as an elegant parlor for five. An elderly man enters and introduces himself as Fermat. The room is stocked with books and a large dining table, setting a formal, game-like atmosphere for the night.

The group socializes and discusses academia while dining. Afterward, Fermat receives a phone call about his daughter, whom he claims is in a coma; the news seems dire but its accuracy is unclear. He leaves in a hurry, forgetting his coat, and the wallet with a photo falls to the floor.

Pascal picks up Fermat's wallet and notices a photo of a girl, hinting at a personal motive or a past they don't know. The discovery adds tension as the group's identities begin to feel more precarious. The PDA still displays puzzles that must be solved under pressure.

The PDA displays a math puzzle with a one-minute time limit. Hilbert, Oliva, and Galois fail to solve it in time, while Pascal quickly provides the solution, dismissing it as an old cliché. The walls of the room begin to contract, revealing a trap and making escape impossible while the puzzle continues to spawn new challenges.

The group realizes the room is configured with four industrial presses that will compress the space as punishment for missed puzzles. They pile the furniture to resist, but the furniture breaks as the walls continue to close in. Panic and strategic tension rise as they search for a way out.

As the pressure mounts, Oliva and Galois's past romance is exposed, and Oliva is revealed to have cheated on Galois with Hilbert. The revelation adds a personal dimension to the competition, intensifying insecurities and distrust among the occupants.

The group discovers that Fermat is not their host but a distraction, and that the true mastermind must be among them. They conclude that someone in the same room is orchestrating the deadly game. The danger now feels intimate, as there are no external observers or cameras.

Galois admits that his earlier claim about proving Goldbach was a fabrication to win Oliva, while Hilbert declares himself the mastermind behind the trap. He also boasts that he has spent a lifetime chasing Goldbach, and Fermat was merely a diversion to keep him focused on vengeance. The room tenses as accusations sharpen blades of trust and betrayal.

Hilbert proclaims a completed proof of Goldbach and hands a folder to Galois. Galois concedes that Hilbert's approach is brilliant, but in a fit of frustration he strikes Hilbert, rendering him unconscious. A critical age clue reveals that the real Hilbert died at 81, indicating the present occupant is a copy or impersonation, and suggesting there was always a hidden escape plan.

The trio discovers a breakable wall panel and escapes with Hilbert's proof. They question whether releasing the solution under Hilbert's name would let him 'win' or whether releasing it under Galois's name would be ethical but solve their predicament. Pascal grabs the folder and scatters the pages on the river, remarking that the world remains the same with or without the proof.