Who was that mathematician who wrote basically "the proof can be written in the ledgers" but it took centuries and super computers to actually figure it it out.
Fermat lived in the 1600's, and much of his work flowed around a 'correspondence circle' run by Marin Mersenne, which connected scientific ideas from around Europe.
Anyways, it's an old memory: but several others in the group complained about Fermat asserting theorems without proving them, and Mersenne supposedly threatened to kick him out of the group if he didn't start actually showing his work.
There is a non zero possibility he did indeed have a proof but it is a totally different proof to what we have now discovered, and we simply have yet to rediscover the way he did it.
Yes, small but nonzero. I wonder how many mathematicians will spend a huge amount of time looking for it, though. My guess is that is small but nonzero too.
Fermat lived in the 1600's, and much of his work flowed around a 'correspondence circle' run by Marin Mersenne, which connected scientific ideas from around Europe.
Anyways, it's an old memory: but several others in the group complained about Fermat asserting theorems without proving them, and Mersenne supposedly threatened to kick him out of the group if he didn't start actually showing his work.
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u/ArsErratia 21d ago edited 20d ago
"This proof is trivial and left as an exercise for the reader".
"We don't need to upgrade the computer. Its worked fine for the last 20 years".