The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat, 1601-1665
eBook - PDF

The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat, 1601-1665

Second Edition

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat, 1601-1665

Second Edition

About this book

Hailed as one of the greatest mathematical results of the twentieth century, the recent proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by Andrew Wiles brought to public attention the enigmatic problem-solver Pierre de Fermat, who centuries ago stated his famous conjecture in a margin of a book, writing that he did not have enough room to show his "truly marvelous demonstration." Along with formulating this proposition--xn+yn=zn has no rational solution for n > 2--Fermat, an inventor of analytic geometry, also laid the foundations of differential and integral calculus, established, together with Pascal, the conceptual guidelines of the theory of probability, and created modern number theory. In one of the first full-length investigations of Fermat's life and work, Michael Sean Mahoney provides rare insight into the mathematical genius of a hobbyist who never sought to publish his work, yet who ranked with his contemporaries Pascal and Descartes in shaping the course of modern mathematics.

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Information

Viete. 
Fran~ois 
(cont.) 
125. 
127. 
132. 
133. 
139. 
148. 
158. 
207. 
254; 
Supplement 
to 
Geometry, 
38; 
Zete-
tics, 
37. 
329 
Villemain. 
401 
Vitelo. 
173 
Viviani. 
Vincenzo. 
Waard. 
Comelis 
de. 
413 
Wallis. 
John. 
13. 
15.20.23.67.216.262. 
285,288,328,348,350, 
352,411;Arith-
metic 
of 
III 
./illites. 
244.335,343,421; 
Commercium 
epistolicum. 
64, 
284, 
285, 
432 
Index 
344-347; 
controversy 
with 
Fermat, 
21, 
22, 
63, 
284, 
333-347 
Ward. 
Seth, 
13 
Weil, 
Andre, 
285, 
328-332, 
349-350, 
357 
Weils, 
Andrew, 
359 
White, 
Thomas, 
337 
Wingate, 
Edmund, 
Wren, 
Christopher, 
267 
Xylander, 
see 
Holtzmann, 
Wilhelm 
Zamberti, 
39 

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. CONTENTS
  5. Preface (1994)
  6. Introduction
  7. Acknowledgments
  8. I. The Personal Touch
  9. II. Nullum Non Problema Solvere: Viète's Analytic Program and Its Influence on Fermat
  10. III. The Royal Road
  11. IV. Fashioning One's Own Luck
  12. V. Archimedes and The Theory of Equations
  13. VI. Between Traditions
  14. Epilogue: Fermat in Retrospect
  15. Appendix I: Sidelights on A Mathematical Career
  16. Appendix II: Bibliographical Essay and Chronological Conspectus of Fermat's Works
  17. Index