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atticdoor t1_ixnhcwv wrote

The title contradicts itself- it says that the famous equation of Fermat's Last Theorem was come up with by Diophantus in the third century, and first stated by Fermat in 1637.

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InterestingPatient49 t1_ixnor16 wrote

Weird effect of Stigler's law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_examples_of_Stigler%27s_law

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retour-a-tipasa t1_ixo3gi3 wrote

It's not really an example of Stigler's law because it was Fermat who came up with the theorem while reading the sum of two squares problem in Arithmetica by Diophantus.

Diophantus provided a solution for finding the sum of two squares but Fermat wondered if you could do the same thing with a cube. He wrote that it wasn't possible for a cube or any greater exponent, and that he had a proof. Unfortunately he was making these notes in the margin of his copy of Arithmetica and his proof was too large to fit.

Diophantine equations is a broader category which Fermat's last theorem falls into.

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