As he delved deeply into these formulas, Zhu Zhengze's mind involuntarily conjured up a veteran figure in the world of mathematics—Pierre de Fermat!
Indeed, the quirkiness of a top mathematician's personality comes to mind simply from the remark this French mathematician jotted down in the margins of his book "Arithmetic," proposing Fermat's Last Theorem!
"I have discovered a truly marvelous proof, but this proof is too long to fit in the margin."
That single sentence baffled the global mathematics community for exactly 358 years!
The International Mathematical Union awarding Wiles the world's first Fields Silver Medal arguably had an element of paying homage to this sentence.
Truly exasperating!
If it were ultimately proven that Fermat's Last Theorem was incorrect, it would have proved that Fermat was merely boasting back then.
