WHAT IS FERMAT’S LAST THEOREM, AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

in 1637, Pierre de Fermat, a judge at the French Parliament of Toulouse, wrote in the margin of a book on Diophantine equations that he had devised a marvelous proof that there are no positive whole number solutions to the equation xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ for n greater than two. His proof, for n = 4 is known, but his general proof for all n greater than two was never found.

It is an interesting aside that Fermat was not a professional mathematician. He did not publish his findings, he simply conveyed them in letters to other mathematicians, and thus was considered an amateur. The less than modest French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes tried to discredit Fermat by proclaiming that he was “a troublemaker who owed his reputation to a few lucky guesses”. However, in one dispute after another, e.g. their derivations of the sine law for the refraction of light, Fermat proved to be right and Descartes wrong. While Descartes clearly considered himself to be the superior intellect of the day, a comparison of their works reveals the fact that Fermat was the better scientist and mathematician of the two.

Descartes’ arrogance shines out in the following statement: “‎I hope that posterity will judge me kindly, not only as to the things which I have explained, but also to those which I have intentionally omitted so as to leave to others the pleasure of discovery.” Implying that he could have explained much more. This is analogous to a classmate of mine who liked to say “I’m not conceited, I’m actually twice as smart as I say I am!”

Peter Bernstein, in his book Against the Gods, states that Fermat "was a mathematician of rare power. He was an independent inventor of analytical geometry, he contributed to the early development of calculus, he did research on the weight of the earth, and he worked on light refraction and optics. In the course of what turned out to be an extended correspondence with Pascal, he made a significant contribution to the theory of probability. But Fermat's crowning achievement was in the theory of numbers."

Regarding Fermat's work, Sir Isaac Newton wrote that his own early ideas about calculus came directly from "Fermat's way of drawing tangents."

Speaking of Fermat's work in number theory, Mathematician Andre Weil says that: "what we possess of his methods for dealing with curves of genus 1 is remarkably coherent; it is still the foundation for the modern theory of such curves. It naturally falls into two parts; the first one ... may conveniently be termed a method of ascent, in contrast with the method of descent which is rightly regarded as Fermat's own. … With his gift for number relations and his ability to find proofs for many of his theorems, Fermat essentially created the modern theory of numbers.

Never-the-less, popular history has treated Rene Descartes very well, while ignoring Fermat. The name Descartes is well known to every student of mathematics and science, while Fermat’s name is virtually unknown except for in relation to Fermat’s Last Theorem, -and most modern mathematicians openly doubt that he actually proved it! Why? Because for more than 300 years, professional mathematicians tried to find a proof, and failed.

The power of Fermat’s math lies in his method of infinite descent, and the principle of “efficient purpose in nature”, and in 1964-5, while teaching high school mathematics, using the same simple principles used by Pierre de Fermat, I produced a proof which I first submitted to a professional mathematician in 1966. Because my proof was completed in 1965, I call it FLT65.

To see FLT65 as it was submitted to the first reviewer on January 25 1966, copy the link below and paste it into your web browser.

http://www.erclosetphysics.com/search?q=Fermat%27s+Last+Theorem+Part+1

This link will take you to a lengthy discussion of FLT65. To see the original submitted version, scroll down to Appendix C.

I have submitted FLT65 to more than 50 mathematicians over the years, and only a few of them who responded actually offered any mathematical arguments attempting to disprove FLT65. And while a precious few have admitted it, none of them were able to produce a valid refutation of FLT65. Because I believed it would eventually be recognized as a valid proof, I have carefully documented the submittals and responses.

You might well ask: if no one has refuted FLT65, why hasn’t it been accepted? The answer to this is an interesting story by itself. To learn the details of the history of the odyssey of FLT65, copy the link below and paste it into your web browser.

http://www.erclosetphysics.com/2015/11/fermats-last-theorem-part-seven.html

I believe that the time for Fermat to become a household name has come, because his simple methods of Diophantine analysis are totally appropriate and exactly what is needed for application to quantum physics. It is time to go beyond the calculus of Newton and Leibniz and apply the Calculus of Distinctions to TRUE quantum equivalence units to produce a better description of multi-dimensional reality. See details in the posts of TDVP and www.BrainVoyage.com.

Because of excessive academic specialization, and the fact that modern thinking has lost its metaphysical basis in Infinite Intelligence, science has gone astray and adopted atheistic materialism as its metaphysical basis. The result is a world society that is morally adrift. This lack of meaning and purpose is so dangerous that, if not corrected, it could spell the demise of the human race. It is time to revisit the simple infinite descent and principle of “efficient purpose in nature”, of Pierre de Fermat.

Edward R. Close    August 4, 2017