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    Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci of Apollonius of Perga together with On Spheric Contacts by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
    Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci of Apollonius of Perga together with On Spheric Contacts by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
    Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci of Apollonius of Perga together with On Spheric Contacts by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
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    Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci of Apollonius of Perga together with On Spheric Contacts by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)

    By James D. Nicholson

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    About this ebook

    Pierre de Fermat, the famous French Renaissance mathematician who gave us Fermat's Last Theorem, left no mathematical records so far as the English speaking world is concerned. This is because he wrote primarily in Latin. Here for the first time are some of his early works restoring the lost geometry treatise of Apollonius of Perga as well as Fermat's own expansion of plane loci into the third dimension using spheres.

    This English translation is based on Paul Tannery's 1891 edition of The Works of Pierre de Fermat (Les Oeuvres des Pierre de Fermat) and includes 65 geometrical diagrams necessary to understand the test. This work is easily accessible to anyone with a basic knowledge of geometry and gives us a glimpse inside the mind of one the greatest mathematical minds in European history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJames D. Nicholson
    Release dateDec 20, 2012
    ISBN9781301305506
    Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci of Apollonius of Perga together with On Spheric Contacts by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)
    Author

    James D. Nicholson

    James D. Nicholson holds degrees in physics, nuclear engineering, and neuroscience. He has a long-time interest in the work of Pierre de Fermat and has contributed to Hal Hellman's book Great Feuds in Mathematics. He is preparing English translations of Claude Bachet's edition of Diophantus' Arithimetica along with translations of other of Fermat's works.

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      Book preview

      Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci of Apollonius of Perga together with On Spheric Contacts by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) - James D. Nicholson

      Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci of Apollonius of Perga

      together with On Spheric Contacts by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)

      edited and translated by J. D. Nicholson

      Copyright J. D. Nicholson 2012

      Published at Smashwords

      Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci of Apollonius of Perga

      together with On Spheric Contacts by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665)

      Translated from P. Tannery's Oeuvres de Pierre Fermat by J.D. Nicholson

      Editor's Introduction:

      Pierre Fermat was the greatest mathematician in renaissance Europe. His work spawned modern statistics, calculus, and analytic geometry. Despite living during the French Renaissance, Fermat was an old school mathematician, and wanted to follow a teaching practice common in the ancient world, where the teacher would pass on his learning in secret to only a few students that he deemed worthy. Francis Bacon (contemporary to Fermat), in his book The Advancement of Learning, calls this the magisterial method. However, Fermat had no students and was otherwise occupied as a parliamentarian and member of the legal profession around Toulouse, France. Fermat attempted to recruit Blaise Pascal to be his student, but was unsuccessful. The correspondence between Pascal and Fermat was passed around Europe and became the basis of modern statistics.

      Because Fermat had no student, he failed to pass on all the details of his work. That coupled with the fire in his family home the night of his funeral effectively wiped out his secrets. Despite these limitations, Fermat left a huge amount of writing... all in French and Latin. The book Les Oeuvres de Pierre Fermat (The Works of Pierre Fermat) compiled by Paul Tannery occupies three large volumes and translates much of Fermat's Latin into French. The problem seems to be that this work has not previously been translated to English, and effectively doesn't exist for most people today, who will do not read the languages Fermat wrote with (Latin and French). It is with great pleasure that I present the first English translation of two of Fermat's early works with the hope that Fermat may finally be given his rightful place in the history of mathematics.

      Notes for Understanding This Book:

      In this translation of Fermat's work, I try to preserve the anachronistic language and punctuation used by Fermat. There are also a few miscellaneous facts that will help your reading of this book. Fermat sometimes refers to someone named Apollonius Gallus (a pen name for the French mathematician François Viète de Fontenay) who inspired Fermat to study mathematics, even though Viète had died around the time Fermat was born. Fermat refers liberally to Euclid's book on geometry (The Elements), as did contemporary authors. It was common to memorize books of Euclid's Elements and to refer to them in mathematical texts. This practice dramatically shortened math works in an era where writing books was very expensive.

      The main topic of this book is loci, but, what is a locus? The word locus has fallen out of favor in modern mathematics, since we now think mathematically in terms of lines, curves, and the mathematical formulae for these objects. A locus is a set of points that meet a certain criterion. For example, the locus of all points at a given distance from a point is a circle. Because Fermat is working prior to the Cartesian coordinate system of mathematics, his terminology reflects a more ancient view. Nevertheless, a basic education in geometry should be enough to understand the constructions Fermat makes. For further exploration of Fermat's mathematical terms and texts, I would suggest consulting The Mathematical Career of Pierre de Fermat by M. S. Mahoney.

      Fermat works within François Viète's system of mathematics. This system historically preceeds the Cartesian system, where points exist at coordinates within a given coordinate system. Viète's system makes few assumptions about the nature of the space in which he works. Thus, a given or fixed point has been assigned its position relative to everything else in the geometrical space by the geometrical construction rather than by a superimposed coordinate system. The Cartesian system is so ingrained in our current thinking of geometry that it may take a few minutes for the reader to understand the fundamental difference between the systems of Viète and DesCartes.

      Regarding the lack of mathematical notation in this book; Fermat is working at a time when mathematical notation was in its infancy. It was not uncommon in Fermat's time to explain what the plus and minus signs meant, since almost everyone wrote out mathematical calculations in plain language without special symbols. The terms vicissim, convertando, dividendo, and componendo arise a few times in this text. These are antiquated terms for algebraic rearrangement, easily understood in context of the formulae. Remember, if the written description of the problem seems unclear, consult the diagrams, that's why they were included.

      Credits:

      Cover art by Josh Latta (www.lattaland.com), copyright J. D. Nicholson. Geometric diagrams by J. D. Nicholson using Geogebra software released under a Gnu General Public License version 3 (www.geogebra.org).

      Restitution of the Two Books on Plane Loci: Book I

      The plane loci are well known; this subject having been treated in two books by Apollonius, and as was attested by Pappus who, at the beginning of his Book VII, gives diverse propositions from it, but in a language

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