> It's fairly commonly asserted nowadays in the mathematical community that
> Fermat's Last Theorem acquired its name because it was the last of Fermat's
> (valid) claims to be actually proved. This explanation makes some sense,
> but is it really all that well established?
This interpretation is surprising since it makes no sense at all.
I learned it as "Fermat's Last Theorem" about 1940, probably from E.T.
Bell, at a time when it could not be foretold that it would ever be
proved; and I assumed, or possibly my reading caused me to assume, that it
was so named because it was a *posthumous* theorem (or conjecture). Its
statement was discovered in his library after his death. What could be
later than that? One now might know (I have no idea, actually) that
others of his valid claims, made in letters and so on, were actually
written down later than this one, which therefore cannot be his "last" in
the chronology of his works. That might be, but the tradition which gave
this conjecture its name was not a scholarly tradition, but rather a
(Romantic) folk tradition, probably much like the one that supposed
Schubert's "Unfinished" symphony to have been his last, or its writing
tragically interrupted by his death.
Ralph A. Raimi Tel. 716 275 4429 or (home) 716 244 9368
Dept. of Mathematics FAX 716 244 6631
University of Rochester Webpage http://www.math.rochester.edu/u/rarm
Rochester, NY 14627 (Webpage contains links to papers)