B.K. = Before Kummer

Paulo Ribenboim
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Paulo Ribenboim: Jeffery Hall Queen’s University, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Chapter Lecture III in 13 Lectures on Fermat’s Last Theorem, 1979, pp 35-49 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract In this lecture, I wish to report various early attempts to solve Fermat’s problem. I begin by considering the case of exponent 2, which is much earlier than Fermat’s time. As Zassenhaus kindly pointed out to me, 2 is the oddest of the primes. Among its special properties, this oddest of all the primes is even; it is also the only exponent for which it is known that the Fermat equation has a nontrivial solution.

Keywords: Prime Element; Great Common Divisor; Nonzero Integer; Prime Integer; General Polynomial Identity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1979
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4684-9342-9_3

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