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In 1993, to the extreme shock of the mathematical community, Andrew Wiles of Princeton University announced that he had found a proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. This theorem was one of the most famous unsolved problems of mathematics; hence, Wiles has achieved certain immortality with his discovery. It is called the "last theorem" because it was the last problem posed by Pierre de Fermat (1601-1665) to remain unresolved after his death. Fermat's problem is: Show that xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ has no solution in whole numbers, where n > 2.

An equation for which a solution in whole numbers is sought is called a Diophantine equation, after Diophantus of Alexandria, who lived about 250 A.D. There is no general method for solving such equations. Get a taste of the field by seeing how Mathematical Explorer can be used to solve some interesting types of Diophantine equations. Also, discover some features of the general problem that make these equations so interesting.