Happy 410th birthday Pierre de Fermat, creator of the famous Last Theorem equation that went unsolved for 358 years and earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most difficult math problem ever.
What’s the probability (no pun intended…) that someone can create a mathematical problem in the year 1637, and the problem not be solved until the year 1995?
Pretty good actually!
And that’s exactly what mathematician Pierre de Fermat did with his nearly unsolvable equation. And it’s because of Pierre de Fermat’s famous Last Theorem that Google has decided to celebrate his 410th birthday today with a Google Doodle.
You see, it was when Pierre de Fermat was 36 years old, in the year 1637, that he stated in the equation an + bn = cn, if a, b, and c are not equal, then no three positive integers greater than two can satisfy the equation.
And for 358 years, mathematicians throughout the world could not solve this problem. In fact, it’s because of this complexity that Peirre de Fermat’s equation earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the most difficult math problem in the world.
It wasn’t until 1995 when a British mathematician named Andrew Wiles was able to solve Pierre de Fermat’s unsolvable equation, working of the foundation of many mathematicians before him.
Happy 410th birthday Pierre de Fermat, and thank you for your contribution the world.
via Google