Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!flph200.ffdc.sbc.com!prodigy.net!flph199.ffdc.sbc.com!prodigy.com!flpi107.ffdc.sbc.com!nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com.POSTED!a38e4a41!not-for-mail
Reply-To: "David Fabian" <david.m.fab...@sbcglobal.net>
From: "David Fabian" <david.m.fab...@sbcglobal.net>
Newsgroups: sci.math,alt.math,rec.puzzles
Subject: Elegant 17th-Century Proof of Fermat's Last Theorem
Lines: 47
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain;
	format=flowed;
	charset="Windows-1252";
	reply-type=original
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.5579
Message-ID: <JPC7l.12709$YU2.9149@nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 99.146.253.174
X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net
X-Trace: nlpi066.nbdc.sbc.com 1230961001 ST000 99.146.253.174 (Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:36:41 EST)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:36:41 EST
Organization: at&t http://my.att.net/
X-UserInfo1: [[PAPDONQJV_SRXY@HHXKUP@WB^DPBHIQ@T@_FYLKX^JGEUNDO_AR\J[WDXJHVKHGFFIZHBL@FX\NIOC@FWYNV\DMNS[HTLIXX\^BUGBXLR@PB@\FKCLXSWAIDFOKG^MFT[GZN^NWY_GVLSRGDYY^AW_MS_RW][KBYZMADO@Y[ABPSPE_TA@LTLFXVTC@RJM
Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 23:36:37 -0600

Assuming I have found Fermat's elegant proof, does anyone have 
any ideas about how I should capitalize on it?

(On another note, I wonder about the validity of Wiles' proof.  As 
complex as it is, it does not seen so safe to assume that there *are* 
no more holes in it, just because the few mathematicians who under-
stand it *cannot find* any more holes in it.)

Dave


The text enclosed below is from:
http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=100029&org=DMS

=============================================
The most famous note ever scribbled in a book may very well be, 
"I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition that this 
margin is too narrow to contain."

In the 1630s, French mathematician Pierre de Fermat jotted that 
unassuming statement and set a thorny challenge for three centuries' 
of mathematicians. He was referring to the claim that there are no 
positive integers for which x^n + y^n = z^n when n is greater than 2. 
Fermat never got around to writing down his "marvelous" proof, 
and the margin note wasn't discovered until after his death.

For 350 years, Fermat's statement was known in mathematical cir-
cles as Fermat's Last Theorem, despite remaining stubbornly un-
proved.

[Snipped story about Taniyama-Shimura conjecture & Wiles' proof, 
using 20th-century math.]

And what of Fermat? Because of the complexity the final proof -- 
certainly too large to fit in a book margin -- and because many 
techniques Wiles used had not been invented in Fermat's day, it's 
been suggested that Fermat didn't really have a proof after all.

Even so, idealists, diehards and enthusiasts continue the quest for 
the more elegant and "truly marvelous demonstration" that they 
believe Fermat had in mind.

-- David Hart
=============================================