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The problem of points, also called the problem of division of the stakes, is a classical problem in probability theory.One of the famous problems that motivated the beginnings of modern probability theory in the 17th century, it led Blaise Pascal to the first explicit reasoning about what today is known as an expected value.
Pierre de Fermat died on January 12, 1665, at Castres, in the present-day department of Tarn. [22] The oldest and most prestigious high school in Toulouse is named after him: the Lycée Pierre-de-Fermat. French sculptor Théophile Barrau made a marble statue named Hommage à Pierre Fermat as a tribute to Fermat, now at the Capitole de Toulouse.
He later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. In 1642, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines (called Pascal's calculators and later Pascalines), establishing him as one of the first two inventors of the mechanical calculator. [8] [9]
The mathematical methods of probability arose in the investigations first of Gerolamo Cardano in the 1560s (not published until 100 years later), and then in the correspondence Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal (1654) on such questions as the fair division of the stake in an interrupted game of chance.
The modern mathematical theory of probability has its roots in attempts to analyze games of chance by Gerolamo Cardano in the sixteenth century, and by Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal in the seventeenth century (for example the "problem of points"). [3] Christiaan Huygens published a book on the subject in 1657. [4]
In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation a n + b n = c n for any integer value of n greater than 2. The cases n = 1 and n = 2 have been known since antiquity to have infinitely many solutions. [1]
Fermat's little theorem is the basis for the Fermat primality test and is one of the fundamental results of elementary number theory. The theorem is named after Pierre de Fermat, who stated it in 1640. It is called the "little theorem" to distinguish it from Fermat's Last Theorem. [3]
The sustained development of probability began in the year 1654 when Blaise Pascal had some correspondence with his father's friend Pierre de Fermat about two problems concerning games of chance he had heard from the Chevalier de Méré earlier the same year, whom Pascal happened to accompany during a trip.