/kloc-a French mathematician in the 0/7th century put forward a mathematical problem, which puzzled later mathematicians. This person is Fermat (1601-1665). Fermat wrote a note on the edge of Diophantine's book, saying that he found that an equation (including the eldest son 2) had no integer solution; But the edge is too narrow to write his simple proof.

The problem is that when n>2, xn+yn = Zn has no positive integer solution. Mathematically, this is called Fermat's last theorem. In order to obtain a positive or negative proof of it, several times in history, generations of the best mathematicians have been studying it, but after more than 300 years, it has not been finally proved or overthrown. Even using modern electronic computers, we can only prove that Fermat's Last Theorem is correct when n is less than or equal to 465,438+0 million. At that time, Fermat claimed that he had solved the problem, but he did not publish the result, leaving a rare eternal mystery in mathematical problems. 19th century, Francis Institute of Mathematics in France provided a gold medal and 300 francs to anyone who solved this problem twice in 18 15 and 1860. Unfortunately, no one can receive the prize. German mathematician Wolfskeil (p? Wolfskehl) provides 100000 marks in 1908 to those who can prove the correctness of Fermat's last theorem, and the validity period is100 years. In the meantime, due to the Great Depression, the bonus amount has been devalued to 7500 marks, but it still attracts many "math idiots". After the development of computers in the 20th century, many mathematicians can prove that this theorem holds when n is large. 1983, the computer expert Sloansky ran the computer for 5782 seconds, which proved that Fermat's last theorem was correct when n was 286243- 1 (Note 286243- 1 is an astronomical figure with about 25960 digits). Nevertheless, mathematicians have not found a universal proof. However, this 300-year-old math unsolved case has finally been solved. Andrew wiles, an English mathematician, solved this mathematical problem. In fact, Willis used the achievements of the development of abstract mathematics in the last 30 years of the twentieth century to prove it. 1September 1994 19 Willis and his students finally handed over a complete and flawless plan, and the nightmare of mathematics finally ended. 1In June, 1997, Willis won the Wolfskeil Prize at the University of G? ttingen. At that time,1100,000 grams was about $2 million, and when Willis received it, it was only worth about $50,000, but Willis has been recorded in the history books and will be immortal.

Born in the south of France, Fermat studied law in college and later became a lawyer. He was a legal adviser to the Toulouse City Court and was elected as a member of parliament. Fermat spent all his spare time reading books, reading everything about philosophy, literature, history and law. I fell in love with mathematics at the age of 30 until I died at the age of 64, and I made many important discoveries in my life.

Fermat has a particularly frustrating habit, that is, instead of publishing a book, he writes some hasty notes on the edge of the book or occasionally writes to friends to tell his findings. As a result, he lost the priority of discovering analytic geometry. He and Descartes independently discovered analytic geometry. In fact, Descartes' formal analysis only involves two-dimensional cases, while Fermat also considers three-dimensional cases. Fermat also lost the priority to invent some characteristics of calculus, which later inspired Newton to invent calculus. However, he may not care. He engaged in mathematical research mainly because of his interest and achievements. However, he rarely publishes papers and works in public, and mainly reveals his thoughts through correspondence with friends. After his death, his son excavated his thoughts by sorting out his notes and annotations. Fortunately, Fermat has a habit of "no pen and ink, no reading". Every book he has read has his circles and sketches, and there are his comments in the margin. He delved into mathematics in his spare time and achieved fruitful results. Later mathematicians benefited a lot from his many conjectures and bold creations, and praised him as "the king of amateur mathematicians".

Fermat's contributions to mathematics include: establishing analytic geometry with Descartes; He created the tangent curve method, which was regarded as the pioneer of calculus by Newton, one of the inventors of calculus. By putting forward valuable conjectures, the development direction of integer theory & number theory is pointed out. He also studied the winning and losing law of dice gambling, thus becoming one of the founders of classical probability theory.