For when there just isn't enough room in your notebook to prove your genius and ground-breaking mathematical theorem;
Simply attach the Fermat Margin to the side of a notebook page, extend its concealed paper, and scribble away! Algorithmic!-- theleopard, Dec 04 2006 The Last Theorem http://en.wikipedia...at%27s_last_theoremFor those who have forgotten their 3 century old maths problems. [theleopard, Dec 04 2006] Ferrero Rocher http://en.wikipedia...wiki/Ferrero_Rocher"Monsieur, with these Ferrero Rocher, you're really spoiling us" [theleopard, Dec 07 2006] Pimp my Ferrero Rocher http://www.pimpthat...ct.php?projectID=41The ambassador makes extraordinarily large chocolates. [theleopard, Dec 08 2006] Would have been a very different world had Pierre Fermat had the eponymous margin.
(Personally, I think he was bluffing - he didn't know shit)-- jonthegeologist, Dec 04 2006 That's what I thought [jon]. His contemporaries, tired of Pierre's constant boastful and condescending margin annotations, could have bought him this for Christmas with a small card that simply read, "Prove it."-- theleopard, Dec 04 2006 Yeah, if he had a proof of his theorem, why didn't he just write "see proof", instead of "I have discovered a truly wonderful proof" which does nothing but draw attention to himself.-- phundug, Dec 04 2006 I don't know if it's relevant here, but I've got a few proofs banging around, all of which are quite astounding. I'd show them to you, but unfortunately they’ve all got far too many squiggly characters to fit into this annotation.-- zen_tom, Dec 04 2006 That is a crying shame, [tom]. I do love astounding proofs. And before you say it, I don't mean creeping up behind a proof and surprising it by conducting a full nude orchestra playing Beethoven's 5th, levitating above the original and otherwise lost manuscript of Homer's The Dionyssey, which is nestled on a bed of impossibly large ferrero rochet. All this whilst surreptitiously inserting him into a Klein bottle from which it is simultaneously impossible to either enter or escape.
I just like them.-- theleopard, Dec 04 2006 You'd love these ones, they are awesome.
(I quite like the Klein bottle entrapment idea too)-- zen_tom, Dec 04 2006 Perhaps you could write your awesome proofs on a mobius strip, and give that to my astounded proof for even greater astonsihment and/or astoundment!-- theleopard, Dec 04 2006 Given that there are a number of simple, small, elegant, and wrong proofs of the theorem, I suspect Fermat actually came up with one of those, wrote the famous annotation then wrote the proof on another sheet, realized it was wrong, and tore up the flase proof in a fit of pique, forgetting to change the annotation.
That, or he just wanted to confuse the generations.
[+]-- gisho, Dec 05 2006 [Bun], but I've always wondered why he didn't just write a little bit smaller-- Dub, Dec 06 2006 //conducting a full nude orchestra playing Beethoven's 5th, levitating above the original and otherwise lost manuscript of Homer's The Dionyssey, which is nestled on a bed of impossibly large ferrero rochet. All this whilst surreptitiously inserting him into a Klein bottle from which it is simultaneously impossible to either enter or escape....//
...blah blah blah. Been there, done that. Next?-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Dec 06 2006 //Next?//
You tell me [Spoon], how else have you astounded your proofs?-- theleopard, Dec 06 2006 Oh, I've astounded my proofs. I have asounded them far beyond your feeble imagination could even comprehend. My proof were so surprised that they turned right back into theories. One was so shocked it became nothing more than a notion. See, what I did was... hey look! You misspelled "else." Hee! Hee! Well, gotta go.-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Dec 06 2006 No I didn't...?-- theleopard, Dec 06 2006 I think you meant "elk".-- Texticle, Dec 06 2006 Lucky for me I cut and pasted your foolish mistake to my computer in case you did that very thing of trying to fake your superiority and make me look foolish. But I have proof, see?...
//You tell me [Spoon], how esle have you astounded your proofs?//
By the way, it is notarized by an official notary but it's in the margin and due to the limitations of this web page you won't be able to see it. However, it will be on display at my local library for two weeks in the center display case for all to witness. Strange, isn't it? How it all goes back to the idea in the beginning? It's like some kind of marginal karma or something.-- NotTheSharpestSpoon, Dec 07 2006 If Fermat had lived in another time, he could have written "Cuius rei demonstrationem mirabilem sane detexi. Hanc computatrum exiguitas non caperet." in MathCAD, but then not had enough disk space to save it.-- Ling, Dec 07 2006 Likewise, [spoon], I read [theleopard]'s rather creative method of astonishment and wondered about coming back with, "You misspelled rocher!" I won't, though; it would detract from his annotation.-- david_scothern, Dec 07 2006 Ah, you box clever there, both of you! But how are you at Canasta?!-- theleopard, Dec 07 2006 I have proved Fermat's last theorem using a very powerful computer. It's a rather inelegant proof requiring 30,000 lines of code, and many mathematicians regard it as only 99.9% certain due to the possibility of an error in the code. My margin of error on this proof is therefore 0.1%.
Like a normal margin, only smaller.-- wagster, Dec 07 2006 I'm atrocious at Canasta, I imagine... I'm just bitter that you managed to depict a (well, perhaps not beautiful) vista with your words and I couldn't. Anyway, if I could have one of those massive ferrero rochers, I'd be happy to stop nitpicking forever?-- david_scothern, Dec 07 2006 [David], hopefully the [link] above will please you. May your chocolate-starved nit-pickery be adequately quenched.-- theleopard, Dec 08 2006 Mmmm! With these links, the leopard is really spoiling us.-- DrBob, Dec 08 2006 leopard - sneaking up on a 'proof'. love it.-- sprogga, Dec 09 2006 I am surprised this hasn't been raised before. [marked-for-repletion] ~ see help file, with explaination of "x only bigger"-- 4whom, Dec 01 2007 [4whom]'s MFD is marked_for_expiry. Take a deep breath, dude, and let it out slowly. Isn't that better?-- phoenix, Dec 01 2007 I think [4whom] was just cheesing me, I having berated other 'bakers for posting ideas that essentially propose making something that is widely known to exist a bit bigger, which is basically what I have done here. Although not quite.
If I'm not mistaken, Fermat's margin was indeed entirely repleted.-- theleopard, Dec 03 2007 Yes it was often replete with taunts (as your ideas are often replete with buns). He could usually back up these taunts, with a following letter detailing the proof. This particular one caught him on the back foot, well below the knee, and on middle stump.-- 4whom, Dec 03 2007 random, halfbakery