Fermat’s Theorems

The seventeenth century mathematician Pierre de Fermat is mainly remembered for contributions to number theory even though he often stated his results without proof and published very little. He is particularly remembered for his ‘last theorem’ which was only proved in the mid-1990s by Andrew Wiles. He also stated other influential results, in particular Fermat’s ‘Little Theorem’ about certain large numbers which can be divided by primes. His ‘Little Theorem’ is the basis of important recent work in cryptography and internet security.