Pierre de Fermat s
French mathematician Pierre de Fermat developed number and probability theory.
Pierre de Fermat around 1630 stated his last theorem of no solutions of the equation an + bn = cn for n, a greater integer than 2, in positive integers a, b, c, as a marginal note; the British mathematician Andrew Wiles proved it not until 1994.
Blaise Pascal co-developed the mathematical theory of probability with Pierre de Fermat.
People give early credit to this amateur and lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse for leading to infinitesimal calculus, including his technique of adequality. In particular, they recognize his research and his discovery of an analogous original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines to that of the then unknown differential calculus. He made notable contributions to analytic geometry and optics. People best know his description in a copy of
Arithmetica
of Diophantus.
“It is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general, any power higher than the second, into two like powers. I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.[Cubum autem in duos cubos, aut quadratoquadratum in duos quadratoquadratos & generaliter nullam in infinitum ultra quadratum potestatem in duos eiusdem nominis fas est dividere cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi. Hanc marginis exiguitas non caperet.]”