The Wonders of Arithmetic from Pierre Simon de Fermat. Youri Veniaminovich Kraskov
and again it was caused not by a professional, but by an amateur interested in FLT with his conjecture corresponding to the restored sixth entry. Of course, to believe in all this is not easily, but also to invent such a thing is also hardly possible. Now we have to explain in more detail these restored entries in the margins and this will be done in the next points of our work and the same senator who started this whole story, will help us in this.
2. The History of Delusions
An unprecedented succession of failures, wrecks of secret hopes and defeats in the protracted for centuries storming of an impregnable fortress under name the Fermat's Last Theorem, turned into a such nightmare for science that even its very existence have been questioned. Like the fierce plague epidemic, the FLT not only deprived the minds of numerous amateur fermatists, scientists and unrecognized geniuses, but also very much contributed to the fact that the whole science was plunged into the abyss of uncontrollable chaos.
Pic. 12. Andrew Wiles
Already three and a half centuries have passed since the first publication of the FLT and twenty-five years after it was announced that in 1995 this problem was allegedly solved by Professor Princeton University USA Andrew Wiles.6 However, once again it turned out this “epochal” event has nothing to do with the FLT!7 “The proof” of Wiles rests solely on the idea proposed by the German mathematician Gerhard Frey. This idea was rated as brilliant, but apparently only because that it was an elementary and even very common error!!!
Pic. 13. Gerhard Frey
Instead of proving the impossibility of the Fermat equation an+bn=cn in integers for n>2 here is proven only its incompatibility in the system with the equation y2=x(x−an)(x+bn). In a similar way any nonsense can be proven. If the same work would be presented by one of the students, any of the professors would quickly bring him to clean water pointing to the obvious substitution of the subject of proof. Nevertheless, this super sensational news with great fanfare was noted in the world's leading media. The most influential newspaper of the USA “The New York Times” has been reported this right on the front page … in whole 2 years before the appearance of the “proof” itself!!! Andrew Wiles as the author of the "proof" became a member of the French Academy of Sciences and the laureate of as many as 18 of the most prestigious awards!!! To cover this momentous event, the British broadcaster BBC released an enthusiastic film and also it was invited the writer Simon Singh who published a book in 1997 titled “The Fermat's Last Theorem. The story of a riddle that confounded the world's greatest minds for 358 years”.
Pic. 15. Simon Singh
Pic. 14. “The New York Times” of 06/24/1993 with an Article About Solving the FLT Problem
If Singh independently was preparing this book, then he would have so many questions that he would not have them managed for 20 years. Of course, he was helped in every way by the very heroes-professors having glorified in the BBC film, therefore the book became a success and it is really interesting to read it even to those who know about mathematics only by hearsay. The first thing that immediately catches your eye, is the fact that in the book it was made an arithmetic error (!) and not somewhere, but in its very name! Indeed, it is well known that “the greatest minds” could not know anything about the FLT before 1670 when its wording first appeared in a book published by Fermat’s son Clément Samuel “Arithmetic” by Diophantus with comments by K. Bachet and P. Fermat (see Appendix VI Pic. 96).8 But then it should be not 358 but 325 years and it turns out that Singh simply did not notice the error?
However, don't rush to conclusions! This is not the book's author error and not at all accidental. These same professors vividly told Singh that supposedly back in 1637 9 Fermat himself had noticed an error in his proof, but simply forgot to strike out recording of this theorem in the margins of the book. Who had invented this tale is unknown, but many scientists perceived it as a known fact and repeated time after time in their works. One can understand them because otherwise we could believe that Fermat turned out to be smarter than all of them! When Andrew Wiles said (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/andrew-wiles-fermat/):
“I don't believe Fermat had a proof” – this opinion was not new at all because many reputable scientists have repeated this many time. However, this is clearly against logic. It turns out that Fermat somehow managed to formulate an absolutely not obvious theorem without any reason whatsoever.10
Another contradiction in Singh’s book is a clear discrepancy between the documentary facts and the assessments of Fermat as a scientist by consultants. It is necessary to pay tribute to Singh in that he is in good faith (although not fully) outlined that part of the Fermat's works, which relates to his contribution to science and is confirmed documental. Especially it should be noted that arithmetic is called in his book "the most fundamental of all mathematical disciplines". Only one listing of Fermat's achievements in science is enough to be sure that there were only a few scientists of such a level in the entire history of science.
But if this is so, then why was it necessary to think out something that is not confirmed by any facts and only distorts the real picture? This is very similar to the desire to convince everyone that Fermat could not prove the FLT since this is allegedly confirmed by historians. But historians received information from those mathematicians who did not cope with the Fermat’s tasks and could in this way express their discontent. Hence, it's clear how appear all the arguments taken from nowhere that Fermat was an amateur scientist, arithmetic attracted him only with puzzles, which he “invented”, FLT also was by him “invented” looking at the Pythagorean equation, and his proofs he did not want to publish because fear of criticism of colleagues.
That's what they really meant! Instead of the greatest scientist and founder of number theory as well as combinatorics (along with Leibniz), analytical geometry (along with Descartes), probability theory (along with B. Pascal), wave optics theory (along with Huygens), differential calculus (along with Leibniz and Newton), whose heritage was used by the greatest scientists in the course of centuries, suddenly a “lover” of puzzles appear, who only enjoyed the fact that no one could solve them. And since arithmetic is puzzles then this most fundamental of all sciences is relegated to the level of crosswords. Such a “logic” is clearly sewn with white threads and to be convinced of this, it is enough just to point out some well-known facts.
History has not retained any evidence that during the period life and activity of P. Fermat, someone has solved at least one of his tasks.11 This fact became the basis for opponents else in those times to compose all kinds of tales about him. In the surviving letters, he reported that he had already sent proofs to his respondents three times. But none of these proofs reached us because Fermat's letters recipients in eyes of posterity of course, did not want to look like they could not cope with simple tasks. Another indisputable fact is that the Fermat's personal copy of the book “Arithmetic” by Diophantus edited in 1621 with his handwritten comments in the margins, none of the eyewitnesses have ever seen!!! Well, now just a most curious picture turns out. Fermat’s critics seriously believe a witty Gascon joke that the Honorable Senator (apparently because of his lack of paper!) writes accurate and verified text of thirty-six Latin words in the book's margins, but are absolutely don't believe that he (the greatest scientist!) indeed had “truly amazing proof” of his own theorem.12
It is even difficult to imagine how these critics would have been amazed to find out that in fact Fermat had never dealt with the search for this proof since at that time he could not know what exactly is to be proven. But namely in the last
It was a truly grandiose mystification, organized by Princeton University in 1995 after publishing in its own commercial edition "Annals of Mathematics" the “proof” of FLT by A. Wiles and the most powerful campaign in the media. It would seem that such a sensational scientific achievement should have been released in large numbers all over the world. But no! Understanding of this text is available only to specialists with appropriate training. Wow, now even that, which cannot be understood, may be considered as proof! However, for fairness it should be recognized that even such an overtly cynical mockery of science, presented as the greatest "scientific achievement" of the luminaries of Princeton University, cannot be even near to the brilliant swindle of their countrymen from the National Space Administration NASA, which resulted that the entire civilized world for half a century haven’t any doubt that the American astronauts actually traveled to the moon!
The “proof”, which A. Wiles prepared for seven years of hard work and published on whole 130 (!!!) journal pages, exceeded all reasonable limits of scientific creativity and of course, him was awaiting inevitable bitter disappointment because such an impressive amount of casuistry understandable only to its author, neither in form nor in content is in any way suitable to present this as proof. But here the real wonder happened. Suddenly, the almighty unholy himself was appeared! Immediately there were influential people who picked up the "brilliant ideas" and launched a stormy PR campaign. And here is your world fame, please, many titles and awards! The doors to the most prestigious institutions are open! But such a wonder even for the enemy not to be wish because sooner or later the swindle will open anyway.
If this book was published during the life of Fermat, then he would simply be torn to pieces because in his 48 remarks he did not give a proof of any one of his theorems. But in 1670 i.e. 5 years after his death, there was no one to punish with and venerable mathematicians themselves had to look for solutions to the problems proposed by him. But with this they obviously had not managed and of course, many of them could not forgive Fermat of such insolence. They were also not forgotten that during his lifetime he twice arranged the challenges to English mathematicians, which they evidently could not cope with, despite his generous recognition of them as worthy rivals in the letters they received from Fermat. Only 68 years after the first publication of Diophantus' "Arithmetic" with Fermat's remarks, did the situation at last get off the ground when the greatest science genius Leonard Euler had proven a special case of FLT for n=4, using the descent method in exact accordance with Fermat's recommendations (see Appendix II). Later thanks to Euler, there was received solutions also of the other tasks, but the FLT had so not obeyed to anyone.
In pt. 2-30 of the letter Fermat to Mersenne, the task is set:
“
An exception is one of the greatest English mathematicians John Wallis (see pt. 3.4.3).
Obviously, if it come only about the wording of the FLT, it would be very unwise to write it in the margins of the book. But Fermat’s excuses about narrow fields are repeated in other remarks for example, in the 45th, at the end of which he adds: “Full proof and extensive explanations cannot fit in the margins because of their narrowness” [36]. But only one this remark takes the whole printed page! Of course, he had no doubt that his Gascon humor would be appreciated. When his son, Clement Samuel who naturally found a discrepancy in the notes prepared for publication, was not at all surprised by this since it was obvious to him that right after reading the book it was absolutely impossible to give exact wording of tasks and theorems. The fact that this copy of Diophantus’ “Arithmetic” with Fermat's handwritten notes didn’t come to us suggests that even then this book was an extremely valuable rarity, so it could have been bought by another owner for a very high price. And he was of course not so stupid to trumpet about it to the whole world at least for his own safety.