Descartes vs, Fermat

Descartes vs. FermatAnalytic Geometry and Optics

Prepared by:Bohol, Jhoanna Marie

O.Falcasantos, Kreanne

L.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Pierre de FermatDates of Birth and Death:

(¤) 17 August 1601 in Beaumont-de-Lomagne nearby Montaubon, Gascogne,France(y) 12 January 1665 in Castres, France

Family Data:

Pierre de Fermat had a Basque origin. His parents were Dominique Fermat, second consul of the city of Beaumont-de-Lomagne, and Francoise de Cazelneuve. The father was a wealthy leather merchant.

Pierre had a brother and two sisters.In about mid-thirties, Fermat married Louise du Long. Fermat had a happy family life. His two daughters became nuns, his son Samuel published his father's opera.

Education:

Probably, Pierre attended the local school run by the Franciscans. After having finished his studies at the Universities of Toulouse and Bordeaux (between 1625 and 1630) he was awarded with the Baccalaureate in Jurisprudence at the University of Orleans in 1631.

In Bordeaux Fermat started his mathematical research. In 1629 he couldnot finished his reconstruction of Apollonius' of Perga (262-190 BC) De planis locis. He wrote his most important publication about Maxima and Minima.

Professional Career:

As from 1631, Fermat was a lawyer in the city parliament (“Conseilleur de la Chambre des Requetes de Parlement"). Since that time he added the “de"to his name. In 1648 he became Royal advisor in Toulouse, since 1652 he was at the criminal court.

The very fact that Fermat was very talented in humanities and languages can be observed from his correspondence.

In our context, Fermat's correspondence with Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) (fromJuly to October 1654) is important, because it is considered as the beginningof the foundation of the mathematical theory of probability. Other colleagues, with some of whom Fermat had a correspondence, were Jean Beaugrand (ca.1590-1640), Pierre de Carcavi (1600-1684), Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695)and Marin Mersenne (1588-1648).

Professional Career:

Fermat is considered as the greatest French Mathematician of the 17th century, in spite of the fact that he was only a “Hobby Mathematician". He became particularly famous for his “Fermat's Last Theorem", about which it is still unknown, whether a solution has been found.

His correspondence with Blaise Pascal brought Fermat into the atmosphere of the non-official Academie des Sciences, which existed around the Abbe Marin Mersenne before the real start of the Academie des Sciences in 1665. The correspondence Fermat-Pascal treats especially the problems of game of chance. Both found solutions by different methods. Therefore, Fermat together with Pascal, initiated the theory for probability.

Publications:

1. Varia opera mathematica... Accesserunt selectae quaedam eiusdem epistolae (Toulouse 1679; Berlin 1861; repr. Bruxelles 1969) (with Apollonius of Perga).

2. P. Tannery, C. Henry (eds.), Áuvres de Fermat, 4 vols.+ suppl. (Paris 1891-1922), with the correspondence Pascal-Fermat in vol. 2 (1894)pp. 288-314, correspondence with Carcavi and Christiaan Huygens,pp. 320-331, other Edition: 5 vols. (University of Michigan 2001).

3. Doctrinae analyticae inventum novum collectum ex variis... (Toulouse1670).

Publications:

4. Diophanti Alexandrini Arithmeticorum libri sex et de numeris multangulis liber unus. Diophantus Alexandrinus" (Toulouse 1670), German: Bemerkungen zu Diophant (Leipzig 1932), English: Thomas Little Heath (ed.), Diophantus of Alexandria (New York 1965).

5. Treatise on the Spherical Tangencies (London 1771).

6. Excerptum breve ex operibus ... Petri Fermatii,... (London 1807).

7. La correspondance de Blaise Pascal et de Pierre de Fermat (Paris 1894;Fontenay aux roses 1983).

8. EinfÄuhrung in die ebenen und kÄorperlichen Ä Orter (Leipzig 1923).

9. Fermats Abhandlungen Äuber Maxima und Minima (Leipzig 1934).

Scientific Awards:

Fermat is also famous for “Fermat's last Theorem". The Crater Fermat on the moon, Passage Fermat and Rue Fermat (14th Arrondissement) in Paris.

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Fermat’s Work on Refraction:A History








Quotation of the Day:

“I have so little aptitude in writing out my [mathematical] demonstrations that I have been content to have discovered the truth, and to know the means of proving it when I shall have reason to do so.”

– Pierre de Fermat

REFERENCES

http://www.robertnowlan.com/pdfs/Fermat,%20Pierre%20de.pdf

http://science.larouchepac.com/fermat/history.html

http://encyclopedia.stochastikon.com