Pierre de Fermat

Introduction
Life and early work
Analyses of curves
Disagreement with other Cartesian views
Work on theory of numbers

References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images

Fermat, portrait by Roland Lefèvre; in the Narbonne City Museums, France

A geometric diagram illustrating Fermat's tangent method, showing a curve intersecting a triangle with labeled points, axes, and segments representing variables x, epsilon, y, and y1.

At a Glance

Pierre de Fermat summary

Quizzes

Numbers and Mathematics

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Related Questions

How are primes of the form 4k + 1 different from primes of the form 4k − 1 in sums of two squares?
How can Fermat’s little theorem help test whether a number is composite?
How can Fermat’s principle be used to explain reflection from mirrors?
How did Christiaan Huygens spread ideas from the correspondence between Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal?
How did Leonhard Euler disprove Pierre de Fermat’s claim about all Fermat numbers being prime?
How did Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal help found probability theory?
How did Pierre de Fermat and René Descartes independently contribute to analytic geometry?
How did Pierre de Fermat calculate the fair division of stakes in an interrupted game?
How did Pierre de Fermat generalize the equations of a parabola and a hyperbola?
How did Pierre de Fermat solve the case n = 4 related to Fermat’s last theorem?
How did Pierre de Fermat use algebra to study geometric loci?
How did Pierre de Fermat’s methods for areas anticipate integral calculus?
How did Pierre de Fermat’s study of Apollonius’s lost work influence his mathematics?
How did Sophie Germain contribute to research on Fermat’s last theorem?
How did infinite descent prove that no integer right triangle can have a square area?
What are the parabolas and hyperbolas of Fermat?
What did Pierre de Fermat write in the margin of his copy of Diophantus’s Arithmetica?
What does Fermat’s little theorem say about a prime number p and an integer a?
What equation is stated in Fermat’s last theorem?
What fundamental connection between equations and curves did Pierre de Fermat establish?
What interrupted-game problem did Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal solve in their 1654 correspondence?
What mathematical disagreement did Pierre de Fermat have with René Descartes in 1638?
What subjects besides law interested Pierre de Fermat during his early years?
When was Pierre de Fermat’s Introduction to Loci published?
When was the final proof of Fermat’s last theorem published?
Which algebraic curves did Pierre de Fermat show could be rectified?
Which ancient Greek mathematician’s Arithmetica inspired Pierre de Fermat’s work in number theory?
Which court appointed Pierre de Fermat in 1638?
Which later wave theory agreed with Pierre de Fermat’s ideas about light traveling through denser media?
Who helped Andrew Wiles repair the proof of Fermat’s last theorem?
Who provided the first known published proof of Fermat’s little theorem?
Who served as an intermediary in the mathematical controversy between Pierre de Fermat and René Descartes?
Why did analytic geometry become associated with René Descartes rather than Pierre de Fermat?
Why does Fermat’s last theorem exclude exponents greater than 2 but not the exponent 2?
Why does Fermat’s little theorem not provide a complete test for prime numbers?
Why was Andrew Wiles’s first announced proof of Fermat’s last theorem incomplete?
Where was Srinivasa Ramanujan educated?
What is Ptolemy best known for?
How did Ptolemy impact the world?
What were Ptolemy’s achievements?
Why is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz famous?
What is Isaac Newton most famous for?
How was Isaac Newton educated?
What was Isaac Newton’s childhood like?
What was Carl Friedrich Gauss’s childhood like?
What awards did Carl Friedrich Gauss win?

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External Websites

University of Montana - ScholarWorks - Number theory and the Queen of Mathematics
Trinity College Dublin - School of mathematics - Biography of Pierre de Fermat
Famous Scientists - Biography of Pierre de Fermat
The Galileo Project - Biography of Pierre de Fermat

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Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Pierre de Fermat - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Pierre de Fermat

French mathematician

Written by

Carl B. Boyer

Professor of Mathematics, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, 1952–76. Author of History of Analytic Geometry and others.

Carl B. Boyer

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

History

Pierre de Fermat (born August 17, 1601, Beaumont-de-Lomagne, France—died January 12, 1665, Castres) was a French mathematician who is often called the founder of the modern theory of numbers. Together with René Descartes, Fermat was one of the two leading mathematicians of the first half of the 17th century. Independently of Descartes, Fermat discovered the fundamental principle of analytic geometry. His methods for finding tangents to curves and their maximum and minimum points led him...

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