"Fermat's Last Theorem is to the effect that no integral values of x, y, z can be found to satisfy the equation xn+yn=zn if n is an integer greater than 2. ...It is possible that Fermat made some... erroneous supposition, though it is perhaps more probable that he discovered a rigorous demonstration. At any rate he asserts definitely that he had a valid proof—demonstratio mirabilis sane—and the fact that no theorem on the subject which he stated he had proved has been subsequently shown to be false must weigh strongly in his favour; the more so because in making the one incorrect statement in his writings (namely, that about binary powers) he added that he could not obtain a satisfactory demonstration of it. … [I]t took more than a century before some of the simpler results which Fermat had enunciated were proved, and thus it is not surprising that a proof of the theorem which he succeeded in establishing only towards the close of his life should involve great difficulties. ...I venture however to add my private suspicion that continued fractions played a not unimportant part in his researches, and as strengthening this conjecture I may note that some of his more recondite results—such as the theorem that a prime of the form 4n+1 is expressible as the sum of two squares—may be established with comparative ease by properties of such fractions."