Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Mathematics #2

[I]t is impossible to write a cube as the sum of two cubes, a fourth power as the sum of two fourth powers and in general any power beyond the second as the sum of two similar powers. For this I have discovered a truly wonderful proof, but the margin is too small to contain it.

Pierre de Fermat, note written in the margin of Arithmetica by Diophantus of Alexandria. First published in 1670: a.k.a Fermat’s Last Theorem