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From: [email protected] (Alex Lopez-Ortiz)
Subject: sci.math FAQ: History of FLT
Summary: Part 4 of many, New version,
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Archive-Name: sci-math-faq/FLT/history
Last-modified: December 8, 1994
Version: 6.2




History of Fermat's Last Theorem

  Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) was a lawyer and amateur mathematician.
  In about 1637, he annotated his copy (now lost) of Bachet's
  translation of Diophantus' Arithmetika with the following statement:

    Cubem autem in duos cubos, aut quadratoquadratum in duos
    quadratoquadratos, et generaliter nullam in infinitum ultra
    quadratum potestatem in duos ejusdem nominis fas est dividere:
    cujus rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi. Hanc marginis
    exiguitas non caparet.

  In English, and using modern terminology, the paragraph above reads
  as:

    There are no positive integers such that x^n + y^n = z^n for n > 2 .
    I've found a remarkable proof of this fact, but there is not enough
    space in the margin [of the book] to write it.

  Fermat never published a proof of this statement. It became to be
  known as Fermat's Last Theorem (FLT) not because it was his last piece
  of work, but because it is the last remaining statement in the
  post-humous list of Fermat's works that needed to be proven or
  independently verified. All others have either been shown to be true
  or disproven long ago.




   [email protected]
   Tue Apr 04 17:26:57 EDT 1995

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