Sophie Germain corresponded with Gauss under a male pseudonym and made the first major progress on Fermat's Last Theorem

Did Sophie Germain secretly solve a famous math puzzle?

Imagine you're trying to split a pizza evenly among friends, but one friend insists on taking a slice that can't be divided equally. It's frustrating and impossible!

Sophie Germain's work on Fermat's Last Theorem is like finding a way to split that impossible pizza slice evenly. Her idea was to prove that certain equations can't be solved using whole numbers, which is what Fermat's Last Theorem states.

Example

Sophie Germain thought about numbers that are 8k + 7 and tried to show that equations like x² + y² = z² couldn't be solved with whole numbers for these specific numbers.

Remember this

Sophie Germain's approach to Fermat's Last Theorem was to show that some equations can't be solved with whole numbers, which is the essence of the theorem.

Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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