Fermats last theorem biography definition
Fermats last theorem biography definition
Fermats last theorem book...
in 1637, Pierre de Fermat, a judge at the French Parliament of Toulouse, wrote in the margin of a book on Diophantine equations that he had devised a marvelous proof that there are no positive whole number solutions to the equation xn + yn = zn for n greater than two.
His proof, for n = 4 is known, but his general proof for all n greater than two was never found.
It is an interesting aside that Fermat was not a professional mathematician. He did not publish his findings, he simply conveyed them in letters to other mathematicians, and thus was considered an amateur.
Fermats last theorem biography definition psychology
The less than modest French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes tried to discredit Fermat by proclaiming that he was “a troublemaker who owed his reputation to a few lucky guesses”. However, in one dispute after another, e.g.
their derivations of the sine law for the refraction of light, Fermat proved to be right and Descartes wrong. While Descartes clearly consid