Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) - French self-taught mathematician, one of the founders of analytical geometry, mathematical analysis, probability theory and number theory. A lawyer by profession, a polyglot. Author of Fermat's Last Theorem, "the most famous mathematical puzzle of all time."
There are many interesting facts in the biography of Pierre Fermat, which we will talk about in this article.
So, here is a short biography of Pierre Fermat.
Biography of Pierre Fermat
Pierre Fermat was born on August 17, 1601 in the French town of Beaumont de Lomagne. He grew up and was raised in the family of a wealthy merchant and official, Dominic Fermat, and his wife Claire de Long.
Pierre had one brother and two sisters.
Childhood, adolescence and education
Pierre's biographers still cannot agree on where he originally studied.
It is generally accepted that the boy studied at the Navarre College. After that, he received his law degree in Toulouse, and then in Bordeaux and Orleans.
At the age of 30, Fermat became a certified lawyer, as a result of which he was able to buy out the post of royal councilor of parliament in Toulouse.
Pierre was rapidly moving up the career ladder, becoming a member of the House of Edicts in 1648. It was then that the particle "de" appeared in his name, after which he began to be called Pierre de Fermat.
Thanks to the successful and measured work of a lawyer, the man had a lot of free time, which he devoted to self-education. At that moment in his biography, he became interested in mathematics, studying various works.
Scientific activity
When Pierre was 35 years old, he wrote a treatise "Introduction to the theory of flat and spatial places", where he detailed his vision of analytic geometry.
The next year, the scientist formulated his famous "Great Theorem". After 3 years, he will also formulate - Fermat's Little Theorem.
Fermat corresponded with the most famous mathematicians, including Mersenne and Pascal, with whom he discussed the theory of probability.
In 1637, the famous confrontation broke out between Pierre and René Descartes. The first in a harsh form criticized Cartesian Dioptrica, and the second gave a devastating review of Fermat's works on analysis.
Soon Pierre did not hesitate to give 2 correct solutions - one according to Fermat's article, and the other, based on the ideas of Descartes' "Geometry". As a result, it became obvious that Pierre's method turned out to be much simpler.
Later, Descartes asked for forgiveness from his opponent, but until his death he treated him with bias.
An interesting fact is that the discoveries of the French genius have survived to this day thanks to a collection of his major correspondence with colleagues. His only work at that time, published in print, was "A Treatise on Straightening."
Pierre Fermat, before Newton, was able to use differential methods for drawing tangents and calculating areas. And although he did not systematize his methods, Newton himself did not deny that it was Fermat's ideas that pushed him to develop analysis.
The main merit in the scientific biography of the scientist is considered to be the creation of the theory of numbers.
Fermat was extremely passionate about arithmetic problems, which he often discussed with other mathematicians. In particular, he was interested in problems about magic squares and cubes, as well as problems related to the laws of natural numbers.
Later, Pierre developed a method for systematically finding all divisors of a number and formulated a theorem on the possibility of representing an arbitrary number as a sum of no more than 4 squares.
It is curious that many of Fermat's original methods for solving problems and levels used by Fermat are still unknown. That is, the scientist simply did not leave any information about how he solved this or that task.
There is a known case when Mersenne asked a Frenchman to find out if the number 100 895 598 169 was prime. He almost immediately said that this number was equal to 898423 multiplied by 112303, but did not say how he came to this conclusion.
Fermat's outstanding achievements in the field of arithmetic were ahead of their time and were forgotten for 70 years, until they were carried away by Euler, who published the systematic theory of numbers.
Pierre's discoveries were undoubtedly of great importance. He developed a general law of differentiation of fractional powers, formulated a method for drawing tangents to an arbitrary algebraic curve, and also described the principle of solving the most difficult problem of finding the length of an arbitrary curve.
Fermat went further than Descartes when he wanted to apply analytic geometry to space. He managed to formulate the foundations of the theory of probability.
Pierre Fermat was fluent in 6 languages: French, Latin, Occitan, Greek, Italian and Spanish.
Personal life
At the age of 30, Pierre married a maternal cousin named Louise de Long.
In this marriage, five children were born: Clement-Samuel, Jean, Claire, Catherine and Louise.
Last years and death
In 1652 Fermat was infected with the plague, which was then raging in many cities and countries. Nevertheless, he managed to recover from this terrible disease.
After that, the scientist lived for another 13 years, dying on January 12, 1665 at the age of 63.
Contemporaries spoke of Pierre as an honest, decent, kind and erudite person.
Photo by Pierre Fermat
