Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by Harold M. Edwards
PIERRE DE FERMAT is called the father of number theory, the branch of mathematics that
deals with the properties of the whole numbers. Born in
1601
his life in the south of France, far from the great European centers of learning. He worked as a
jurist, not as a professional mathematician, and none of his mathematical works was published
until after his death. His extensive participation in the mathematics of his time was conducted
entirely through his private correspondence with other scholars. Fermat formulated many
challenging and perceptive theorems that were not proved until long after his death. By
1840
only one of these theorems remained to be proved. It has come to be called Fermat's last theo
rem: There are no solutions in whole numbers to the equation
er than
2.
xn + yn
Z n, where 1/ is great
Fermat's last theorem is one of the most famous unsolved problems of modern math
ematics. This painting of Fermat is in the collection of the Academie des Sciences, Inscriptions
et Belles Lettres de Toulouse; it is reproduced here with the kind permission of Robert Gillis.
104
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109
1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
DroPHANT I
ALEXANDRINI
ARITHMETICO R V M
LIBRI
SEX.,
E T DE NVMERIS MVLTANCVLIS
LIBER VNVS.
CPM
TOLOS.. ,
Excudebat B ERN A R D V S B 0 S C ) e Regione Coltegij Societatis leut.
- --------- -
M.
D.,.J5 ..
FERMAT'S LAST THEOREM was first set down in the margin of Arithmetica, a work on
number theory by the ancient Greek mathematician Diophantus. Fermat had studied the book
closely, making many marginal notes in his copy of it, a translation into Latin by C. G. Bachet.
After Fermat's death in 1665 his son published a new edition of Bachet's translation of Arith
metica that included Fermat's marginal notes in an appendix. The title page of the book is
shown in this illustration. Translated from the Latin, it announces Six Books of Arithmetica
and One Book on Polygonal Numbers by Diophantus of Alexandria, "with notes by the distin
guished gentleman C. G. Bachet and observations by Doctor P. de Fermat, Senator of Tou
louse," and "a new discovery of analytical doctrine collected from the various letters of the
aforementioned Doctor de Fermat." Fermat's historic note referred to a problem concerning
Pythagorean triples. He wrote: "On the other hand, it is impossible . . for any number that is a
power greater than the second to be the sum of two like powers. I have discovered a truly mar
velous demonstration of this proposition that this margin is too narrow to contain." To this
day it is not known whether Fermat really had a rigorous proof of the theorem. In any case
no other mathematician has been able to prove the theorem or to find a counterexample to it.
110
1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
LEONHARD EULER proved Fermat's last theorem for the case of the first odd prime expo
nent. n equals 3. This painting, made in about 1745, shows the Swiss mathematician during his
lifetime. Before Euler's proof Fermat's last theorem had been established (by a direct applica
tion of Fermat's own work) in only one case: n equals 4. It is easy to show that if the theorem is
true when n equals some integer r, then it is true when n equals any multiple of r. Since every
integer is divisible either by 4 or by an odd prime, it remained only to prove the theorem in the
cases where n is an odd prime. The first successful effort in this direction was Euler's, but al
though his proof was ingenious, it had a serious flaw. The flaw was easily corrected in the proof
of the case n equals 3, but it turned out to be a central issue in many later attacks on theorem.
112
1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
Placed in the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Government.
113
1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
"The Physicist's
rire'
U.S. Pat.
No. 4,069,808
flames , , .were
uniform
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114
1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
How come
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It's a reflection of our continuing
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@
o
Western Electric
115
1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
MICROSCOPES. BI
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ERNST EDUARD KUMMER made the greatest advance that has ever been made on Fer
mat's last theorem. In 1847 the German number theorist. working on a system of numbers
called the cyclotomic integers, discovered a sufficient condition for a prime number p to be an
exponent for which Fermat's last theorem is true, that is, if a prime p satisfies Kummer's con
dition, then xP + yP = zP is impossible. Today prime numbers that satisfy the condition are said
to be regular. When regular primes were discovered, Fermat's last theorem had been estab
lished only for the cases where n equals 3, 4, Sand 7, but Kummer was able to prove the
theorem true for aU but three of the primes (37, S9 and 67) smaller than 100. More recently suf
ficient conditions that are far more inclusive than Kummer's have been discovered. All primes
within the range of computation, even on the largest computers, have been proved to be ex
ponents for which Fermat's last theorem holds. The theorem has still not been proved, how
ever. In fact, it has not even been shown to be true for an infinite number of prime exponents.
116
1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
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1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
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118
1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
AN IRISH MIST
SETTLED OVERTHE
EVENING.
Regular Primes
Kummer's theory of 1 847 was partic
ularly valuable because it provided a
sufficient condition for an odd prime p
to be an exponent for which Fermat's
last theorem is true. In other words. if an
odd prime p satisfies Kummer's condi
tion. then xP + yP = zp has no solution.
In modern terminology a prime that sat
isfies the condition is called regular.
(Specifically. a prime p is regular if and
only if it does not evenly divide the nu
merator of any of the first p - 3 num
bers in the series of fractions called the
Bernoulli numbers. ) Although regulari
ty is a sufficient condition for Fermat's
last theorem. it is not a necessary condi
tion. There are primes p that are not
regular for which xP + yP = zp has been
proved impossible. Of the primes small
er than 1 00 all but 3 7 . 59 and 67 are
regular.
Kummer jumped to the conclusion
that the set of regular primes was infi
nite. but he soon realized he could not
prove it to be true. Indeed. no subse
quent effort has yielded a proof. al
though on the basis of intuition and nu
merical evidence the assertion that there
are infinitely many regular primes seems
to be as certain as an unproved state
ment can be. (Oddly enough. it has been
proved that there are infinitely many ir
regular primes. About 60 percent of the
primes within the present range of com
putation are regular. and there are good
reasons to believe the majority of all
primes are regular. Hence all the prime
numbers can be divided into two sub
sets. the regular primes and the irregular
primes. where the set that is expected to
be larger cannot be proved infinite but
its complement can be proved infinite. )
In later years Kummer established
other sufficient conditions for Fermat's
last theorem that covered even more
prime numbers. including the irregular
primes 3 7 . 59 and 6 7 . Since Kummer's
time even more inclusive sufficient con
ditions have been found. some of the
most inclusive of them by H. S. Van
diver of the University of Texas. Even
the most inclusive conditions. however.
have still not been shown to apply to an
infinite number of prime exponents.
Thus it is still conceivable. no matter
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1978
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-MARC L I N C O LN M A R K S ,
CRON
V I CTO R I AN 3- D V I EW E R S E TS
I nvented
in
our
H o l mes,
han dsome
1 8 59
by
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121
NOW
AVAI LABLE
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iff
YEAR BOOK OF T H E
U N ITED NATIONS
1 975
" A L I B RA R Y I N ITSELF"
THE T W ENTY-N I N T H VOLU M E
O F T H I S I M PO R T A N T
REFERENCE WORK,
W H ICH HAS BEEN CALLED
THE M EM O RY O F T H E
U N ITED NATIONS.
3 5 .00
THE J O UR NA L
o f ACA D E M I C
T- S HI R T S
cord i a l ly i n v i tes you to accept a free
subscri ption begi n n i n g w i th the
c u rrent Vol. 5, No. 1 . We apologize
for a journal w ithout scholarly arti
cles but it does conta i n dozens of
d i agrams, mottoes and e q uations,
som e worth a Nobel pri ze. A l l are
d i rectly s i l k-screened onto T-shi rts
and a single sh i rt costs $5.75, includ
i n g pst. and hdl. ch arges.
The periodic table is ava i l a b l e as
are Schrod i n ge r's and Maxwe l l 's
e q u ations, the Krebs and M i totic
cycles, stu n n i n g portraits of Coper
n i c u s and Euglen a gracilis,
a
C h o p i n etude, a Shakespearean son
net and a Corinthian capital. The
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sented as are designs in E conom ics,
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m any more. Apply to
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1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC
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1978 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, INC