Pierre De Fermat

Pierre de Fermat was born August 17, 1601 in Beaumont- Lomagne, France. Pierre was born into a Catholic family and was baptized August 20, 1601. He was one of four children, three boys and one girl. Pierre’s father was a leather merchant and the second consul of his hometown. His mother was a parliamentary noblesse de la robe. He began his secondary schooling at Cordeliers. Then it was said he went to the University of Toulouse. He acquired his degree of Bachelor of Civil Laws from the University of Orleans in 1631. He then registered to become a lawyer in Toulouse in 1631 as well. Pierre was financially secure throughout his whole life. Fermat was promoted to a king's councillorship in the parliament of Toulouse in 1648. "Fermat's offices made him a member of that social class also and entitled him to add the de' to his name, which he did from 1631 on.The office he now held
In simple (sic) terms, it says that if we have two numbers a and p, where p is a prime number and not a factor of a, then amultiplied by itself p-1 times and then divided by p, will always leave a remainder of 1. In mathematical terms, this is written: ap-1 = 1. For example, if a = 7 and p = 3, then 72 ÷ 3 should leave a remainder of 1, and 49 ÷ 3 does in fact leave a remainder of 1.
Fermat identified a subset of numbers, now known as Fermat numbers, which are of the form of one less than 2 to the power of a power of 2, or, written mathematically, 22n + 1. The first five such numbers are: 21 + 3 = 3; 22 + 1 = 5; 24 + 1 = 17; 28 + 1 = 257; and 216 + 1 = 65,537. Interestingly, these are all prime numbers (and are known as Fermat primes), but all the higher Fermat numbers which have been painstakingly identified over the years are NOT prime numbers, which just goes to to show the value of inductive proof in