Fermat,+Pierre+de

Pierre de Fermat

Pierre de Fermat was born on August 17, 1601 in Beaumont, France. He was born in a wealthy family; his dad was a successful leather merchant. His mothers family were lawyers. Pierre was one of two sons and had two sisters. Unfortunately there is barley any knowledge of Pierre’s early life before he became a mathematician other than the fact that he went to a local Franciscan school. Also known is that he was married and did have five children. In the late 1960's Fermat and his family move to Bordeaux. Pierre went on to study law at the University of Joulouse in the city of Orleans. He became a lawyer in the beginning of the year 1631. His status rose up gradually and by the end of 1652 he was at the highest level of criminal court. Pierre de Fermat’s profession was law, and it’s not right to say that he was an unsuccessful lawyer. He got many important cases and made a lot of money doing so. He was even in parliment for a breif amount of time. But Pierre’s hobby was really thinking. He lived in a time when there wasn’t a lot of knowledge in the fields of science and mathematics. There was a lot to be proved and discovered so he got down to work. He was a logical thinker and if something didn’t make sense Pierre would notice and tell other’s why. Pierre de Fermat was really an all around smart person. Pierre de Fermat was busy thinking of problems and theorems until his death on January 12, 1665.

CONTRIBUTIONS: The strange (and funny) thing about Pierre de Fermat is that he wasn't a professional mathematician. He was a lawyer, but that doesn't mean that he didn't contribute to the math world at all... Known as one of the best mathematicians of all time, Fermat did math strictly out of love, not for money. His goal was to prove many theorems. One of his most famous theorems was "Fermat's Last Theorem." He first wrote of his discovery in the margins of the book Diaphantus. He found proof of the equation x~+y~=2~ has no integer solutions for n>2. He later said, "I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which however the margin is not large enough to contain." The theorem was not fully proven until finally A. Wiles proved it in 1995. One problem with Fermat is that he didn't publish his discoveries. Fermat is credited with developing the two-axis coordinate plain and with co-founding number theory with Blaise Pascal. Pierre de Fermat had many friends in the math world, including Beaugrand, Carcavi, Apollonius, Father M. Mersenne, Rene Descartes, and the aforementioned Blaise Pascal. Another extremely important contribution was evolving Sir Isaac Newton's ideas of calculus. Fermat's work was fundamental to the scientific development of the laws of physics in the 1700's. It wasn't until after Fermat's death that Leonard Euler made Fermat's discoveries important and known. Euler expanded Fermat's theorems and solved some of them.

sources:

Schuyler, "Fermat, Pierre de." __Lives and legacies: Scientists, Mathematicians, and Inventors__. 1999. Scholastic. [[http://www.math.about.com/library/bifermatbio.htm|Pierre de Fermat. about. February 26, 2008 . Great Thinkers, Pierre de Fermat. February 19, 2008 . Davis, Arthur. Biograohy of Fermat. February 16, 2008 . Fermat. scienceworld. February 21, 2008 .

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