Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh Read Free Book Online Page B

emanating from the capital were implemented back in the regions. Fermat was an efficientcivil servant, who by all accounts carried out his duties in a considerate and merciful manner.
    Fermat’s additional duties included service in the judiciary and he was senior enough to deal with the most severe cases. An account of his work is given by the English mathematician, Sir Kenelm Digby. Digby had requested to see Fermat, but in a letter to a mutual colleague, John Wallis, he reveals that the Frenchman had been occupied with pressing judicial matters, thus excluding the possibility of a meeting:
    It is true that I had exactly hit the date of the displacement of the judges of Castres to Toulouse, where he [Fermat] is the Supreme Judge to the Sovereign Court of Parliament; and since then he has been occupied with capital cases of great importance, in which he has finished by imposing a sentence that has made a great stir; it concerned the condemnation of a priest, who had abused his functions, to be burned at the stake. This affair has just finished and the execution has followed.
    Fermat corresponded regularly with Digby and Wallis. Later we will see that the letters were often less than friendly, but they provide vital insights into Fermat’s daily life, including his academic work.
    Fermat rose rapidly within the ranks of the civil service and became a member of the social élite, entitling him to use
de
as part of his name. His promotion was not necessarily the result of ambition, but rather a matter of health. The plague was raging throughout Europe and those who survived were elevated to fill the places of those who died. Even Fermat suffered a serious bout of plague in 1652, and was so ill that his friend Bernard Medon announced his death to several colleagues. Soon after he corrected himself in a report to the Dutchman Nicholas Heinsius:
    I informed you earlier of the death of Fermat. He is still alive, and we no longer fear for his health, even though we had counted him among the dead a short time ago. The plague no longer rages among us.
    In addition to the health risks of seventeenth-century France, Fermat had to survive the political dangers. His appointment to the Parliament of Toulouse came just three years after Cardinal Richelieu was promoted to first minister of France. This was an era of plotting and intrigue, and everyone involved in the running of the state, even at local government level, had to take care not to become embroiled in the machinations of the Cardinal. Fermat adopted the strategy of performing duties efficiently without drawing attention to himself. He had no great political ambition, and did his best to avoid the rough and tumble of parliament. Instead he devoted all his spare energy to mathematics and, when not sentencing priests to be burnt at the stake, Fermat dedicated himself to his hobby. Fermat was a true amateur academic, a man whom E.T. Bell called the ‘Prince of Amateurs’. But so great were his talents that when Julian Coolidge wrote
Mathematics of Great Amateurs
, he excluded Fermat on the grounds that he was ‘so really great that he should count as a professional’.
    At the start of the seventeenth century, mathematics was still recovering from the Dark Ages and was not a highly regarded subject. Similarly mathematicians were not treated with great respect and most of them had to fund their own studies. For example, Galileo was unable to study mathematics at the University of Pisa and was forced to seek private tuition. Indeed, the only institute in Europe to actively encourage mathematicians was Oxford University which had established the Savilian Chair of Geometry in 1619. It is true to say that most seventeenth-century mathematicians were amateurs, but Fermat was an extreme case. Livingfar from Paris he was isolated from the small community of mathematicians that did exist, which included such figures as Pascal, Gassendi, Roberval, Beaugrand and most