Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Hailed as one of the greatest mathematical results of the twentieth century, the recent proof of Fermat's Last Theorem by Andrew Wiles brought to public attention the enigmatic problem-solver Pierre de Fermat, who centuries ago stated his famous conjecture in a margin of a book, writing that he did not have enough room to show his "truly marvelous demonstration." Along with formulating this proposition--xn+yn=zn has no rational solution for n > 2--Fermat, an inventor of analytic geometry, also laid the foundations of differential and integral calculus, established, together with Pascal, the conceptual guidelines of the theory of probability, and created modern number theory. In one of the first full-length investigations of Fermat's life and work, Michael Sean Mahoney provides rare insight into the mathematical genius of a hobbyist who never sought to publish his work, yet who ranked with his contemporaries Pascal and Descartes in shaping the course of modern mathematics.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface (1994) ix
• Introduction xi
• Acknowledgments xvii
• I The Personal Touch 1
• 1 Mathematics in 1620
• 2 Fermat's Life and Career in Parlement
• 3 Motivation to Mathematics
• II Nullum Non Problema Solvere: Viete's Analytic Program and Its Influence on Fermat 26
• 1 Algebra, Analysis, and the Analytic Art
• 2 Following the ""Precepts of the Art""
• 3 Fermat's Style of Work and His Influence on His Contemporaries
• III The Royal Road 72
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Fermat's Analytic Geometry, the Ad locos pianos

Author notes provided by Syndetics