eleaticus wrote:
> >
> > I have found a beautiful bidding system but this margin is too small
to
> > contain it.
>
> I don't understand that one.
It's a reference to Fermat's Last Theorem. From Wikipedia:
'Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes abbreviated as FLT) is one of the
most famous theorems in the history of mathematics. It states that:
It is impossible to separate any power higher than the second into two
like powers,
or, using more formal mathematical notation:
If an integer n is greater than 2, then an + bn = cn has no solutions
in non-zero integers a, b, and c.
The 17th-century mathematician Pierre de Fermat wrote in 1637 in his
copy of Claude-Gaspar Bachet's translation of the famous Arithmetica of
Diophantus: "I have a truly marvelous proof of this proposition which
this margin is too narrow to contain." '
It turns out that Fermat was correct, but probably did actually have a
proof. It took mathematicians over 350 years to finally prove it in
the 1990's.
Wikipedia included some odd facts about FLT, including this:
'A sum, proved impossible by the theorem, appears in an episode of The
Simpsons, "Treehouse of Horror VI". In the three-dimensional world in
"Homer3", the equation 1782 ^ 2 + 1841 ^ 2 = 1922 ^ 2 is visible, just
as the dimension begins to collapse.'
- Bob T.
|
