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Pierre de Fermat IPA&_160;[pj??? d?f??'ma] (17 August 1601 or 1607/8[1] – 12 January 1665) was a French lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse, France, and a mathematician who is given credit for early developments that led to modern calculus. In particular, he is recognized for his discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of the then unknown differential calculus, as well as his research into the theory of numbers. He also made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics. Fermat was born at Beaumont-de-Lomagne, 58 kilometers (36&_160;miles) north-west of Toulouse, France. The late 15th century mansion where Fermat was born in Beaumont-de-Lomagne is now a museum. Pierre Fermat's father was a wealthy leather merchant and second consul of Beaumont-de-Lomagne. Pierre had a brother and two sisters and was almost certainly brought up in the town of his birth. Although there is little evidence concerning his school education it must have been at the local Franciscan monastery. He attended the University of Toulouse before moving to Bordeaux in the second half of the 1620s. In Bordeaux he began his first serious mathematical researches and in 1629 he gave a copy of his restoration of Apollonius's Plane loci to one of the mathematicians there. Certainly in Bordeaux he was in contact with Beaugrand and during this time he produced important work on maxima and minima which he gave to Étienne d'Espagnet who clearly shared mathematical interests with Fermat. There he became much influenced by the work of Vieta. From Bordeaux Fermat went to Orléans where he studied law at the University. He received a degree in civil law before, in 1631, receiving the title of councillor at the High Court of Judicature in Toulouse, which he held for the rest of his life. Due to the office he now held he became entitled to change his name from Pierre Fermat to Pierre de Fermat. Fluent in Latin, Greek, Italian, and Spanish, Fermat was praised for his written verse in several languages, and his advice was eagerly sought regarding the emendation of Greek texts.
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