Flowers Stained With Moonlight (31 page)

The main events concerning the story of Fermat’s last theorem occurred as recounted in this book. Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665), professional magistrate, and amateur but brilliant mathematician, wrote exactly the famous claim quoted by Korneck in the margin of his copy of Diophantus; it is now commonly believed that his proof must have contained an error which he quite possibly later noticed himself. He was not immune to errors; he did claim to have proved his theorem for the exponent $n=3$, but there is a gap in his proof which was repaired only a century later by the astoundingly prolific Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) – at least, there appears to be a gap in Euler’s proof as well, but that one has been convincingly plugged since then.

The young Sophie Germain (1776–1831) was indeed forced to assume a male identity both to study (by correspondence) at the École Polytechnique and to address
herself to the great Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855), who, upon discovering her true identity as described, wrote her the letter quoted in the text.

The public rivalry between Augustin Cauchy (1789–1857) and Gabriel Lamé (1795–1870), who deposited sealed manuscripts at the Academy of Sciences and published successive portions of their ‘proofs’ until the breakthrough described in the letter by Ernst Kummer (1810–1893) was publicly read out in front of all the members, really existed; it is documented by the reports of the weekly meetings published in the
Comptes-Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences,
and the two passages concerning Cauchy are cited verbatim. These old
Comptes-Rendus,
containing reports on every kind of scientific progress, and sundry remarks upon the behaviour of the members, make remarkably interesting reading.

The record of the submission of an attempted proof of Fermat’s theorem by a certain G. Korneck of Kempen, Poznània, and the brief report on it by Henri Poincaré (1854–1912) are reproduced here exactly as they were published in the
Comptes-Rendus,
although they actually appeared a little later, in 1894. Apart from this unfortunate effort, G. Korneck has left no other detectable trace; the depiction of his character in this book is entirely fictional.

A most informative popular rendering of the story of Fermat’s last theorem from its inception until its final proof by Andrew Wiles in 1994, can be found in the book
Fermat’s Last Theorem
by Simon Singh (Fourth Estate,
London, 1997). A very complete website containing the biographies of hundreds of mathematicians can be found on the Internet at the address:

http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/BiogIndex.html
.

Although not mathematical, it is worth noting that the facts concerning the Princesse de Lamballe recounted in the novel are also entirely historical, including the contemporary accusations linking her with Marie-Antoinette. The ultimate truth on this matter, of course, is unlikely ever to be known.

C
ATHERINE
S
HAW
is a professional mathematician and academic living in France.
Flowers Stained with Moonlight
is her second mystery novel.

The Three-Body Problem

Flowers Stained with Moonlight

The Library Paradox

The Riddle of the River

Fatal Inheritance

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