David Pengelley presents "Sophie
Germain's Grand Plan to Prove Fermat's Last Theorem" on May 11, 2020,
via Zoom. Sponsored by the Oregon State University chapter of the
Association for Women in Mathematics, and introduced by Branwen Purdy,
President. The audience
was primarily OSU Mathematics faculty and graduate students, and
external guests Dora Musielak and Dominic Klyve. The research presented is joint work with Reinhard Laubenbacher, and may be found at
https://arxiv.org/abs/0801.1809.
Abstract: The Oregon State University chapter of the Association for Women in
Mathematics invites you to join in celebrating International Women in
Mathematics Day with a special colloquium on a famous woman
mathematician. Sophie Germain (1776-1831) is the first woman known to
have created important new mathematical research. She is best known in
number theory for the first general result aimed at proving Fermat's
Last Theorem, finally proven only 25 years ago. However, her
unpublished manuscripts, and a letter to Gauss, reveal that for her this
result was only minor fallout from a multifaceted grand plan she
pursued for proving the theorem outright, emphasizing new theoretical
techniques of broad applicability. We will explore her grand plan and
its side thrusts, including remarkable lower bounds on the size of
possible solutions to Fermat's equation. Her work likely lay unread for
nigh 200 years. We will also reveal a surprising connection between
Germain's work and International Women in Mathematics Day, May 12. The
presentation will be accessible to both undergraduate and graduate
mathematics majors. This presentation will be similar to the 2014
Lonseth Lecture.
