The Wonders of Arithmetic from Pierre Simon de Fermat - страница 47

The special significance of the FLT is that in essence, this is one of the simple cases to addition of power numbers when only the sum of two squares can be a square and for higher powers such addition is impossible. However, according to the Waring-Hilbert theorem, any natural number (including an integer power) can be the sum of the same (or equal to a given) powers47. And this a much more complex and no less fundamental theorem was proven much earlier than the FLT.

We also note the fact that the FLT attracts special attention not at all because this task is simple in appearance, but very difficult to solve. There are also much simpler-looking tasks, which are not only not to be solved, but also even nobody really knows how to approach them 48. The FLT especially differs from other tasks that attempts to find its solution lead to the rapid growth of new ideas, which become impulses for the development of science. However, there was so much heaped up on this path that even in very voluminous studies, all this cannot be systematized and combined.49

Great scholars did not attach much importance to building the foundations of science apparently considering such creativity to be a purely formal matter, but centuries-old failures with the FLT proof indicate that they underestimated the significance of such studies. Now when it became clear where such an effective scientific tool as the descent method could come from, as well as other tools based on understanding the essence of number, it becomes clear why Fermat was so clearly superior to other mathematicians in arithmetic, while his opponents have long been in complete bewilderment from this obvious fact.

Here we come to the fact that the main reason for failures in the search for FLT proof lies in the difference between approaches to solving tasks by Fermat and other scientists, as well as in the fact that even modern science has not reached the knowledge that already was used by Fermat in those far times. This situation needs to be corrected because otherwise the FLT so will continue to discredit whole science.

One of the main questions in the studies on the FLT was the question of what method did Fermat use to prove this theorem? Opinions were very different and most often it was assumed that this was the method of descent, but then Fermat himself hardly called it "truly amazing proof." He also could not apply the Kummer method, from which the best result was obtained in proving the FLT proof over the last 170 years. But perhaps he besides the descent method had also other ones? Yes indeed, this is also described in detail in treatise "A New Discovery in the Art of Analysis" by Jacques de Billy [36]. There, he sets out in detail Fermat's methods, which allow him to find as many solutions as necessary in systems of two, three, or more equations. But here his predecessors Diophantus, Bachet and Viet at best found only one solution. After demonstrating Fermat's methods for solving the double equalities Billy also points to the most important conclusion, which follows from this: This kind of actions serves not only to solve double equalities, but also for any other equations.

Now it remains only to find out how to use the system of two equations to prove the FLT? Obviously, mathematicians simply did not pay attention to such an explicit clue from Fermat or did not understand its meaning. But for us this is not a problem because we can look into the cache and delve into the "heretical writings"! Based on what we have already been able to recover from Fermat’s works, we can now begin to uncover this greatest mystery of science, indicating also an effective method that allows us to solve the problem of FLT proof.