When I'm done cursing and messing with my time machine, I stare dumbfounded at the empty spot where Descartes had ceased to cogito ergo sum. Maybe I'm in the wrong timeline, because that sort of thing doesn't happen where I come from. It occurs to me that perhaps the shielding on my cheap time machine is leaking and generating logic anomalies.
I figure I'll just hop forward a few years and make sure Descartes reappeared. He knew a lot of people, I should be able locate one of them and ask. Since I'm in a French kind of mood and the Babelfish is working well, I decide on Toulouse, 1638.
Another puff of smoke later, I am deposited in another seventeenth century alley in a seventeenth century rubbish heap. Rising, I brush some onionskins and carrot tops from my shoulders and peek out into a street lined with imposing stone houses. According to the stat-meter on my time machine, the house I want is behind the gate across from where I stand.
By now, Pierre de Fermat is a member of the Criminal Court and necessarily lives a secluded life so that his decisions will not be influenced by personal acquaintance. He uses mathematics to compensate for the lack of socializing and corresponds with other leading mathematicians, including Descartes if I haven.t totally screwed up the timeline.
Figuring he won't mind a visitor who wants to chat him up about number theory (and peek at his mail), I cross the street and knock on the gate. Once the toothless old man on the other side determines that I'm not selling anything, he lets me into the yard and hollers muddily for a house servant. While we wait, sparkling white chickens scratch the earth and throw baleful glares my way. Finally a woman comes to the door and, after looking me over with suspicion equal to that shown by the chickens, shows me in to a book-cluttered room.
A dark-haired man in a long wool robe pores over a manuscript and scratches notes on any unmarked surface. He looks up vaguely at the unbidden interruption. I introduce myself and ask him a quick question about plane curves before he can send me away. That gets him going and I'm treated to an intensive lecture on a subject with which I'm familiar, but using terminology with which I'm not. In addition to the plane curves, I now have a new and deep understanding of the notion of cognitive dissonance.
Fermat sees me looking dizzy and, the consummate host, hops up and insists that I take a drop of cognac. He scurries off to fetch some, leaving me alone with the books and papers. So many papers, in fact, that it's hopeless to rifle through them in search of a mention of Descartes.
I hear shouting and the clank of bottles from the lower story and figure I'm on my own for a while. I turn my attention to the books stacked in leaning towers on the desk. The book on top of the highest stack is a copy of Diophantus' Arithmetica. I can't resist flipping it open to search for the most famous margin note in history. And here it is:
"I have discovered a truly remarkable proof but this margin is too small to contain it" (Only not in English. The Babelfish helps me read too.)
The equation xn + yn = zn, where x, y, z, and n are natural numbers, has no solution if n is greater than 2.
I'm poring over the page to see if he might have written anything else, because the historians tend to keep the best bits for themselves, when Fermat returns, followed by the servant woman who carries a tray. Unceremoniously, she knocks a few books off a low table, whereon she places a shining decanter of amber liquid and two reasonably clean glasses, and then leaves. Fermat pours us both a drink. I take a cautious sip, because I've learned the hard way that the alcohol content can be pretty high in these days, but the cognac is delicious, buttery smooth and rich, so I get less cautious.
Fermat sees what I was reading and the man giggles at me.
"Do you really have a proof?" I ask. I think my suspicion is justified here.
"Of course. I've written it down somewhere, I can't remember where." He waves around at the papers.
"Can you write it out for me? I've never seen it."
"Why not? You seem to have a grasp of basic mathematics," he says.
"I do, but no one else ever proved it until 1995. A guy named Andrew Wiles had to develop whole new branches of mathematics to do that proof," I tell him.
Fermat is unimpressed. Dryly, he says, "I take it that he couldn't get it on one page."
"It would have to be a really big page."
Fermat sets down his glass and rummages around for a blank sheet of paper. Once he finds one, which takes a while—long enough for me to get started on a second dram, he settles himself in his chair and starts scratching out his proof. A few minutes later, he gestures for me to approach and, with a self-satisfied smile, explains his proof.
It's damn nifty.
893 words | April 6, 2004 10:12 PM | StoryIt's damn nifty.
Posted by: at April 7, 2004 01:26 PM