Pierre de Fermat was a part-time French mathematician. He was known for working alone, and did not have access to a computer.
Upon his death, an equation was found scrawled in the margin of his notes. xn + yn = zn, where n is greater than 2, which he said had no solution in whole numbers. To this he added the phrase "Remarkable proof", but he did not live to write the proof down. The problem became known Fermat's last theorem. (TNG: "The Royale")
His theorem was eventually proved by Andrew Wiles, but people continued to try to find alternative proofs for the next eight hundred years. These included, among others, Jean-Luc Picard, Tobin and Jadzia Dax. (TNG: "The Royale"; DS9: "Facets")
Fermat's name was not mentioned on screen beyond simply "Fermat"
According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, 4th ed., vol. 1, p. 269, the birth and death years of Pierre de Fermat were 1601 and 1665, respectively. However, this does not fit well with Picard's assertion that people had been working on Fermat's theorem for 800 years.
External link[]
- Pierre de Fermat at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Pierre de Fermat at Wikipedia