Sethuraman, B A
(2013)
Fermat numbers.
At Right Angles, 2 (3).
pp. 19-23.
ISSN 2582-1873
Abstract
The French mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665) was a
veritable giant of number theory whose discoveries, and especially,
whose conjectures and unproven assertions, kept mathematicians
hard at work for several centuries that followed. Indeed, the first
two issues of this magazine both featured his work: the first issue
reviewed a book on the history of what is known as “Fermat’s
Last Theorem,” while the second issue, in an article on the four
squares theorem , describes Fermat’s work on primes that are
representable as sums of two squares.
Besides these two well known contributions, Fermat is known for a
whole host of other theorems in mathematics. He was a lawyer by
training, but his passion was mathematics. He shone in arithmetic
(which in its more advanced form is what we call number
theory today), but made seminal contributions i
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
