Given the likely length of the shortest possible proof, I feel like Fermat is 100% vindicated - the proof won’t fit in the margin.

My strong hunch is that it was a joke - he knew how difficult the problem was and claiming he had a solution was I think a huge motivating factor for many mathematicians trying to prove it. The greatest nerd snipe troll in history.

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BeetleB an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Most likely an error. Some time after he wrote that margin note, he wrote a document proving a special case of the FLT (i.e. it's true for n satisfying some property). Why would he do that if he had already proved it?

	▲	zamadatix an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think that point actually agrees with GP's take (joking/lying about having had a proof too big to fit in the margin): He would do that because if he thought the problem was extremely difficult but didn't actually have a proof when writing the note he would still want to go on and try to pick away at the problem.

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zamadatix an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Maybe, we'd have to go back and ask him to be sure. I mostly just didn't want to leave an as of yet certainly unproven vindication about this hanging in a thread about finally having a formalized proof of the star topic :D