Last time we met Rene Descartes, who unified algebra and geometry through the coordinate system.
We saw how equations become curves and curves become equations, a revolution that made calculus possible.
Welcome back to Men of Mathematics.
Today we meet Descartes' contemporary and rival, Pierre de Fermat, a lawyer by profession and perhaps the greatest amateur mathematician who ever lived.
His marginal notes and letters contain some of the deepest mathematics of the 17th century.