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Mathematicians born on this day:
1853 : Ricci-Curbastro |
Mathematicians who died on this day:
1665 : Fermat |
| Pierre de Fermat | Hermann Minkowski | James Thomson |
Pierre Fermat (1601 - 1665)
[In the margin of his copy of Diophantus's Arithmetica, Fermat wrote]
To divide a cube into two other cubes, a fourth power or in general any power whatever into two powers of the same denomination above the second is impossible, and I have assuredly found an admirable proof of this, but the margin is too narrow to contain it.
Another quotation by one of today's mathematicians
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JOC/EFR October 2010
The URL of this page is: |
School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland |
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/history/Day_files/Day112.html
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