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fermat's theorem
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[Deleted User]
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Okay, when the doctor is talking to the men on the laptop, I can't tell, who does he say is killed in a duel before he can write down Fermat's Therorem? The only mathematician I know who is killed that way is Galois but it didn't sound like he said his name?
Anyone able to hear it better than me?
Anyone able to hear it better than me?
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Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Last Theorem in 1993, I think, using mathematical techniques from the 20th century.
Fermat alluded to a 'marvelous' proof he had dscovered in a side note, but did not give further details.
Now if Fermat did have such a proof, using mathematical techniques of the time, then it would indeed be 'marvelous'. Perhaps this is what the new Doctor hinted at.
Tha'sa right - and Simon Singh wrote an excellent book on the story of the theorm and the proof. However Wiles' proof was extremely complex and would have been the one (if, indeed he actually had one) that Fermat used. Mathematicians still suspect there's an elegant proof out there.
Fermat lived to (probably - records aren't clear) 57, and while the result in question is generally called his last theorem, it was by no means the last thing he wrote; it was just the last to be proved subsequent to his death.
He did write that he had found a "marvellous" proof, but could not fit it in the margin of the book where he had noted the result. Unfortunately for romantics, this was almost certainly erroneous; he never mentioned it again, but did produce a partial proof for one specific case, so it is generally thought that he must have later realised his mistake.
Of course, the above is the case in our own current timeline; The Doctor's influence no doubt altered events as we know them.