Pierre de Fermat
From Wikiquote
Pierre de Fermat (17 August 1601 – 12 January 1665) was a French lawyer of Basque origin at the Parliament of Toulouse and a mathematician who is given credit for the development of modern calculus.
 |
This People article is a stub. You can help Wikiquote by expanding it. |
[edit] Sourced
- Cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet.
- I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem which this margin is too small to contain.
- Note written on the margins of his copy of Claude-Gaspar Bachet's translation of the famous Arithmetica of Diophantus, this was taken as an indication of what became known as Fermat's last theorem, a correct proof for which would be found only 357 years later; as quoted in Number Theory in Science and Communication (1997) by Manfred Robert) Schroeder
- Also known as Fermat's little theorem, the formula above is true for any prime p.
