Pierre de Fermat

Pierre De Fermat was born in France in August of 1601. His father was a leather merchant and his mother’s family was in the legal profession. children, and practiced law. Math was simply just a hobby for Pierre. Pierre De Fermat was a busy lawyer, and didn’t leave much time for his love of math. Since math was just his hobby, he never wanted any of his work to be published. When he did publish his work, it was always anonymously. Fermat would state theorems, but always neglected the proofs. For example, his most famous work, ‘Fermat’s Last Theorem,’ didn’t include a proof until when Andrew J. Wiles provided the first in 1993. He made many contributions in the field of mathematics. For example, he is considered as one of the ‘fathers’ of analytic geometry, along with Rene’ Descartes. He developed a method for determining maxima, minima, and tangents to various curves that was equivalent to differentiation. He obtained a technique for finding the centers of gravity for various plane and solid figures. Also, he is considered to be one of the founders of the probability theory along with Blaise Pascal. Fermat was the first person known to have evaluated the integral of general power functions. He made contributions in the field of optics and provided a law on light and travel. He wrote a few papers about calculus, before Issac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz were even born. Fermat’s most important work was done in the development of the modern number theory, which was one of his favorite areas of math. Pierre de Fermat died in the year 1665. . These annotations are unsupported by proof. During his lifetime, Pierre De Fermat received very little recognition as a mathematician, and if others didn’t save his papers and letters he may not be the legend he is today.