Fermat numbers

Sethuraman, B A (2013) Fermat numbers. At Right Angles, 2 (3). pp. 19-23. ISSN 2582-1873

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Abstract

The French mathematician Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665) was a veritable giant of number theory whose discoveries, and especially, whose conjectures and unproven assertions, kept mathematicians hard at work for several centuries that followed. Indeed, the first two issues of this magazine both featured his work: the first issue reviewed a book on the history of what is known as “Fermat’s Last Theorem,” while the second issue, in an article on the four squares theorem , describes Fermat’s work on primes that are representable as sums of two squares. Besides these two well known contributions, Fermat is known for a whole host of other theorems in mathematics. He was a lawyer by training, but his passion was mathematics. He shone in arithmetic (which in its more advanced form is what we call number theory today), but made seminal contributions i

Item Type:	Articles in APF Magazines
Authors:	Sethuraman, B A
Document Language:	Language English
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Fermat, Fermat number, Fermat prime, infinity, regular polygons, constructability
Subjects:	Natural Sciences Natural Sciences > Mathematics
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > University Publications > At Right Angles
Full Text Status:	Public
Related URLs:	Google Scholar
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/1683
Publisher URL:	http://apfstatic.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-...

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