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FERMATS
LAST THEOREM
Fermats Life
In the second half of the 1620s. he moved to
Bordeaux where he began his first serious
mathematical researches. From Bordeaux
Fermat went to Orlans where he studied law at
the University. He became a councillor at the
parliament in 1631 and receved the title of
councillor at the High Court of Judicature in
Toulouse, which he held for the rest of his life. In
1648 he was promoted to king's counselor in
the Parliament of Toulouse. He quickly moved
up the ranks and in 1652, he became the chief
magistrate of the criminal court. His work
allowed to spend large amounts of time in
isolation. It was during this time, he obeying his
passion for mathematics developed the
fundamental theorem and theories.
In 1631 he married his mother's cousin, Louise
de Long; they had three sons and two
daughters. Contemporaries described him as an
honest, accurate, balanced and genial man, a
brilliantly erudite in mathematics and in the
humanities, a connoisseur of many ancient and
living languages, in which he wrote good
poetry. He died on January 12, 1665 in Castres,
France.
There is some doubt as to the precise date of
his birth. He is said to have been baptized on
Aug. 20, 1601, but his tombstone puts his birth
as 1608, and others have stated 1595. He was a
professional lawyer who pursued mathematics
in his spare time. Fluent in Latin, Greek, Italian,
and Spanish, Fermat was praised for his written
verse in several languages, and his advice was
eagerly sought regarding the emendation of
Greek texts. Sir Isaac Newton said that his
invention of calculus was based a large part on
Fermat's method of tangents. He is best known
for legend Fermat's Last Theorem (1637), which
states that for natural numbers x, y, and z there is
no natural number n greater than 2 for which xn
+ yn = zn is true. He died without revealing his
proof and it was not until 1994 that the English
mathematician Andrew enough to contain." A
lunar crater and a street in Paris are named after
him.
Fermats
Contributions
The analytic geometry. A
contemporary of Ren
Descartes, he independently
came up with a threedimensional geometry, but did
not publish his work, and the
field became known as
Cartesian geometry. The
number theory. His brilliant
research entitled him to rank
as the founder of the modern
number theory. He stated the
Fermat's Last Theorem (1637) as well as Fermat's little
theorem( 1640), and developed the inductive infinite
descent method, which was the first general proof of
diophantine questions.
He made some discoveries in regard to the properties
of numbers, on which he afterwards built his method of
calculating probabilities. Mathematical analysis. He
discovered an original method for determining maxima,
minima, and tangents to various curves that was
equivalent to differential calculus. He obtained a
technique for finding the centers of gravity of various
plane and solid figures, which led to his further work in
quadrature. The resulting formula was helpful to Newton,
and then Leibniz, when they independently developed
the fundamental theorem of calculus. The theory of
probability.
In 1654, Blaise Pascal wrote a letter asking about
Fermat's views on probability. Their series of
correspondences became the foundation of
probability theory. In 1660 he planned to meet with
Pascal, but meeting not held due to ill of both scientists.
Optics. He discovered the least time principle which
states that light will travel through an optical system in
such a way as to pass from starting to ending point in
the least amount of time Fermat's principle of least time
was the first variational principle enunciated in physics.
In this way, Fermat is recognized as a key figure in the
historical development of the fundamental principle of
least action in physics. The term Fermat functional was
named in recognition of this role.
x + y = z
Pythagoras Theorem is not just a nice idea, or a notion that seems to work
for most right-angled triangles. It is always true and mathematicians can
prove this.
Fermat was interested in whole number solutions to Pythagoras equation,
such that x, y, and z could be any whole number, except zero.
The numbers (3, 4, 5) or (5, 12, 13) are known as Pythahorean triples, and
such triples have been studied for thousands of years. Indeed, ancient
Babylonian tablets list Pythagorean triples.
There are an infinite number of Pythogorean triples. This can be
demonstrated by looking at looking at the difference between successive
square numbers. You can see that every odd number is the difference
between two squares. Therefore every square odd number is the
difference between two squares. There are an infinite number of square
odd numbers, so there must be an infinite number of Pythagorean triples.
Fermat must have been bored with such a tried and tested equation, and as a
result he considered a slightly mutated version of the equation:
x + y = z
Surprisingly, the Frenchman came to the conclusion that among the infinity of
numbers there were none that fitted this new equation, which is said to be cubic
or to the third power. Whereas Pythagoras equation had many possible solutions,
Fermat claimed that his equation was insoluble.
Fermat went even further, believing that if the power of the equation is
increased further, then these equations would also have no solutions:
x + y = z
x + y = z
x + y = z
x + y = z
x + y = z
n>2
{ x, y, z }
According to Fermat, none of these equations could be solved, and he noted this in
the margin of his Arithmetica. To back up his theorem he had developed an
argument or mathematical proof, and following the first marginal note he scribbled
the most tantalising comment in the history of mathematics:
Now the race was on to rediscover Fermats proof. Trial and error showed that
Fermats Last Theorem seemed to be true, because nobody could find three whole
number solutions. But nobody could be sure that no such solutions existed.
Mathematicians would only be happy if they could find a solid proof, a reasoned
argument, something that would unequivocally show that the theorem was true.
Fermats Last Theorem became the most notorious problem in mathematics. The
more that mathematicians tried, the more they failed, and the more desirable a
solution became.
Andrew Wiles
Mathematicians aren't satisfied because they
know there are no solutions up to four million or
four billion, they really want to know that there
are no solutions up to infinity.
Unfortunately for Wiles this was not the end of the story: his proof was found to contain a flaw. The
flaw in the proof cannot be simply explained; however without rectifying the error, Fermat's last
theorem would remain unsolved. After a year of effort, partly in collaboration with Richard Taylor,
Wiles managed to fix the problem by merging two approaches. Both of the approaches were on their
own inadequate, but together they were perfect. So it came to be that after 358 years and 7 years of
one man's undivided attention that Fermat's last theorem was finally solved.