Pierre de Fermat (Quelle: Wikimedia Commons)
I shouldn’t and won’t ever claim to be as brilliant as Fermat. When he scribbled his famous theorem by the margins of a book he was reading (or so the legend goes), he was certainly referring to a proof that he had somewhere on paper and not just an idea. Else, he might have felt like I do right now. I have this wonderfully brief and quite clear footnote in my dissertation that summarises what I believe is an interesting connection between Hannah Arendt’s thinking on power and Niccolo Machiavelli’s writings. It claims, more or less, that both have similar ideas of power and violence, but tend to emphasize different aspects of the relationship because they reflect upon different historical circumstances. I, intuitively and wholeheartedly, stand by that. However, I am planning to give a paper on the topic soon and it turns out that the idea is much more complex and difficult to explain than I thought. So, I keep thinking of Fermat all day, because he scribbled his idea down, claimed it was proven and it took a solid 500 years and whole new fields of mathematics to actually find prove of the theorem. I just hope, I can explain my idea by the end of the week, else I am in trouble… Keep you updated.
By the way, Amir Daczel wrote a highly recommendable book on Fermat’s theorem and the story of it.
UPDATE: Well, it turns out that the idea is rather complex. Yet, all things considered I made a worthwhile attempt at presenting it even if the idea not publishable quite that way. The feedback, however, has shown me what I need to do to make it work. Building an argument is a bit like architecture – lay good groundwork and even curious buildings will hold up. So, back to construction. And thanks to everyone for the help — there is nothing quite as helpful as a critical question.
Tags: book reccommendations, curious things, history, methodology, power