Pierre de Fermat

Pierre de Fermat (1607–1665) was a French mathematician, lawyer, and government official who made significant contributions to number theory, geometry, probability, and the early development of calculus. He is best known for:

• Fermat's Last Theorem: A famous problem that remained unsolved for over 350 years until it was finally proven by Andrew Wiles in 1994.

• Fermat's Principle in optics: Which states that light follows the path that takes the least time.

• Analytic geometry: Alongside René Descartes, Fermat helped develop the foundations of coordinate geometry.

• Number theory: He introduced key concepts like Fermat's Little Theorem, Fermat numbers, and techniques for proving the primality of numbers.