X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Fermat's Last Theorem


Aleksandr Khazanov

He attended Stuyvesant High School, and was named a finalist and eventually placed 7th at the 54th Westinghouse Science Talent Search for a paper dealing with a variance of Fermat's Last Theorem.

Richard Dedekind

Ideals generalize Ernst Eduard Kummer's ideal numbers, devised as part of Kummer's 1843 attempt to prove Fermat's Last Theorem.

Robert F. Coleman

The title of his thesis was Division Values in Local Fields, and it was later cited in Andrew Wiles's final paper presenting the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.


Alfred Weber

As for the Weber triangle problem, which is a generalization of the Fermat triangle problem, it was first formulated by Thomas Simpson in 1750, and popularized by Alfred Weber in 1909.

Amir Aczel

His book, Fermat's Last Theorem (ISBN 978-1-56858-077-7), was a United States bestseller and was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Fermat point

This question was proposed by Fermat, as a challenge to Evangelista Torricelli.

Fermat–Weber problem

Weber problem, the problem of finding a point minimizing the sum of weighted distances from given (point, weight) pairs

Geometric median, the problem of finding a point minimizing the sum of distances from given points

Fermat's principle

Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen), in his Book of Optics (1021), expanded the principle to both reflection and refraction, and expressed an early version of the principle of least time.

Fermat's theorem

The works of 17th century mathematician Pierre de Fermat engendered many theorems.

Fermat polygonal number theorem, about expressing integers as a sum of polygonal numbers

General Amherst High School

GAHS has been recognized for a number of causes, including (but not limited to): the Canadian record of per capita student contributions in donations to the Canadian Cancer Society, championships in football, hockey, basketball, track & field, wrestling, tennis, cross country and volleyball; the recipient of several Essex County "Student Prime Minister of the Year" awards (2004, 2005, & 2009) and high rankings in the University of Waterloo Fermat Mathematics competition.

Hydraulic press

The room featured in Fermat's Room has a design similar to that of a hydraulic press.

Principle of least action

The speculative fiction writer, Ted Chiang, has a story, Story of Your Life, that contains visual depictions of Fermat's Principle along with a discussion of its teleological dimension.

Story of Your Life

The phenomenon of Heptapod B is explained by the alien's understanding of mathematics and Fermat's principle of least time.


see also