Works Cited

Fermat's Family Life

Fermat was a leading mathematician of the first half of the 17th century. He was born August 17, 1601 and died January 12, 1665. Fermat died in Castres, France, however his cause of death is unknown. Fermat was of Basque origin. He was born in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, in southern France. His father, Dominique Fermat, was a wealthy businessman whose main line of business was in agricultural products. Examples of these products include wheat, wine, cattle, and animal hides. Fermat’s mother's name was Claire de Long. She passed away when he was seven years old.

Fermat came from an aristocratic family, so he received an excellent education growing up. He began his schooling at a local Franciscan school. During his time at university he focused more on language and literature classes. Fermat was fluent in classical Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish and Occitan. He began his collegial studies at the University of Orléans in 1623, focusing on civil law. He graduated in 1626 at the young age of 18.

Schooling

Fermat then moved to Bordeaux to become an attorney, which is where he first started higher level mathematics. Fermat inherited a large amount of money when he was 20, due to his father's passing. When Fermat was 22, he paid an enormous amount of money to acquire a senior legal position in the High Court of Toulouse, thus becoming a nobleman. This allowed him to change his name from Pierre Fermat to Pierre de Fermat. The following year, Fermat married his 15 year old cousin, Louise de Long. Together they had eight children. Only five of these children survived to become adults. Fermat became a councilor in the high court of Toulouse in 1634.

Professional Career

Fermat dressed for High Court.

Fermat only focused on mathematics in his spare time. He did not publish any of his findings. The only knowledge of his discoveries comes from letters he wrote to other mathematicians, or from his notes found after his death. Fermat took a break from mathematics from 1643 to 1654 when he nearly died from the plague. He was also extremely stressed from work and the civil war during this time.

Career in Mathematics

One of Fermat's letters to another French mathematician at the time.

Fermat first became interested in mathematics at the age of 19 when a friend of his inherited a library that included the works of several mathematicians. He was very interested in the work of Francois Vieta, who made substantial contributions to algebra. When Fermat was 21 years old he made his first contributions to the mathematical world by discovering new methods of finding maxima, minima and tangents. Fermat's work became more widely known in 1636 after being shared by the French mathematician Marin Mersenne, who recognized Fermat as a true mathematician.

Fermat's Interest in Math

Marin Mersenne

Francois Vieta

In 1639 Fermat Sent Mersenne two manuscripts he had written called Method for determining Maxima and Minima and Tangents for Curved Lines and Introduction to Plane and Solid Loci. Method for determining Maxima and Minima and Tangents for Curved Lines was based on work Fermat had written 10 years earlier and was essentially the beginning of a type of math called differential equations. Fermat also contributed to calculus by creating methods to find the area under power functions. However, his methods only worked in certain cases. Isaac Newton is more famously noted for discovering calculus; however, he credited Fermat's work as a guide to his discoveries

Fermat's Manuscripts

In Fermat's second manuscript, Introduction to Plane and Solid Loci, he discovered analytic geometry, showing how an equation from algebra could equally be described as a geometric curve. Renè Descartes, another French mathematician, is also credited for inventing analytic geometry around the same time as Fermat. In 1654, Blaise Pascal wrote to Fermat and asked him to help with a math problem relating to gambling. Fermat answered his question and today is recognized as a co-founder of probability theory, along with Pascal.

Fermat's Manuscripts

Rene Descartes

Blaise Pascal

Fermat also founded the principle of least time after deriving Snell’s Law of Refraction. He recognized that light takes the least possible time to make its journey when it changes direction when being refracted. This led to the led to the principle of least action, which is one of the most important principles in modern physics. Fermat's main passion was in number theory, inspired by Diophantus' Arithmetica. He scribbled his notes on the margins of a copy of this book. One of his comments led to one of the most famous math problems ever - Fermat's Last Theorem.

Fermat's contributions to Physics and Number Theory