"Fermat died with the belief that he had found a long-sought-for law of prime numbers in the formula 2^{2^n} + 1 = a prime, but he admitted that he was unable to prove it rigorously. The law is not true, as was pointed out by Euler in the example 2^{2^5} + 1 = 4,294,967,297 = 6,700,417 times 641. The American lightning calculator Zerah Colburn, when a boy, readily found the factors but was unable to explain the method by which he made his marvellous mental computation."
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Academics from the United StatesNon-fiction authors from the United StatesMathematicians from the United StatesMathematicians from SwitzerlandHistorians of mathematics
Original Language: English
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p. 180; also cited in Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath's Quotation-book (1914) pp. 156-157.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Florian_Cajori
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Florian Cajori
1859 – 1930
Florian Cajori (1859 – 1930) was a Swiss-American professor of mathematics and physics. He was one of the most celebrated historians of mathematics in his day. Cajori's A History of Mathematics (1894) was the first popular presentation of the history of mathematics in the United States and his 1928 –1929 History of Mathematical Notations has been described as "unsurpassed."
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