ABSTRACT
Whai's the Problem? Fermat's Last Theorem has got to be one of the most popular problems
in the history of mathematics-millions of people have toyed with it, and
thousands have worked up a real mental sweat trying to solve it. The
problem, posed by the French mathematician Pierre de Fermât back in
the seventeenth century, is usually stated in terms of the famous equation
xn + yn = zn,
where x, y, z, and n represent unspecified whole numbers. When n = 1
the equation has too many solutions to be interesting, and when n = 2
there are still infinitely many (3 2 + 4 2 = 5 2 is the most famous). The
problem Fermât bequeathed to us is to show that when n becomes bigger
than 2, the situation changes dramatically: there are no solutions at all.
