Pierre de Fermat

Pierre de Fermat (August 20, 1601 – January 12, 1665) was a French lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse, southern France, and a mathematician who is given credit for the development of modern calculus. In particular, he is the precursor of differential calculus with his method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, analogous to that of the then unknown differential calculus. Perhaps even more important, his brilliant researches in the theory of numbers entitle him to the rank of the founder of the modern theory. He also made notable contributions to analytic geometry and probability.

External links

• {{MacTutor Biography|id=Fermat}}
• The Life and times of Pierre de Fermat (1601 - 1665) from W. W. Rouse Ball's history of mathematics
• The Mathematics of Fermat's Last Theorem
• Fermat's Achievements