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Pierre de Fermat Quotes

1607–1665 France

Pierre de Fermat (Between 31 October and 6 December 1607 to 12 January 1665) was a French mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, he is recognized for his discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of differential calculus, then unknown, and his research into number theory.

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Also known as: Fermat

Random Pierre de Fermat quote

4 quotes

I have discovered a truly remarkable proof of this theorem which this margin is too small to contain.

There is scarcely any one who states purely arithmetical questions, scarcely any who understands them. Is this not because arithmetic has been treated up to this time geometrically rather than arithmetically?

Letter to Frénicle (1657)

And this proposition is generally true for all progressions and for all prime numbers; the proof of which I would send to you, if I were not afraid to be too long.

It is impossible for the cube to be written as a sum of two cubes or a fourth power to be written as a sum of two fourth powers or, in general for any number which is any number which is a power greater than the second to be written as a sum of two like powers. I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Pierre de Fermat (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.