Three centuries of struggle by the world's finest mathematical minds to replicate the proof could have been avoided had Fermat not laid claim to the proof in the margin of his copy of a text by Diophantus. His reference to the proof of his great theorem reads '... I have assuredly found an admirable proof of this, but the margin is too narrow to contain it'. In his Some Thought on Modern Mathematical Research published in 1912, G. A. Miller refers to a reward of $25,000 for the proof of Fermat's great theorem.

In view of the fact that the offered prize is about $25,000 and that lack of marginal space in his copy of Diophantus was the reason given by Fermat for not communicating his proof, one might be tempted to wish that one could send credit for a dime back through the ages to Fermat and thus secure this coveted prize, if it actually existed. This might, however, result more seriously than one would at first suppose; for if Fermat had bought on credit a dime's worth of paper even during the year of his death, 1665, and if this bill has been drawing compound interest at the rate of 6% since that time, the bill would not amount to more than seven times as much as the prize.

• নাম : Business Mathematics
• লেখক: ড. মো. আবু তাহের
• প্রকাশনী: : আবীর পাবলিকেশন্স
• পৃষ্ঠা সংখ্যা : 464
• ভাষা : english
• ISBN : 9847014600027
• বান্ডিং : paperback
• শেষ প্রকাশ (5) : 2019