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Last time we met Rene Descartes, who unified algebra and geometry through the coordinate system.

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We saw how equations become curves and curves become equations, a revolution that made calculus possible.

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Welcome back to Men of Mathematics.

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Today we meet Descartes' contemporary and rival, Pierre de Fermat, a lawyer by profession and perhaps the greatest amateur mathematician who ever lived.

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His marginal notes and letters contain some of the deepest mathematics of the 17th century.