On Tuesday 15 November 2005 04:20, Dean Hickerson wrote:
I ran across an article in The Humboldt Beacon (a newspaper published in Fortuna, CA) about a botanical garden that's being created at College of the Redwoods. Part of the garden is a double spiral walkway, in the shape of the Spiral of Fermat. (From a google search, I see that its polar equation is r^2 = theta.) The article has this paragraph, which I don't understand:
Fermat first discussed his spiral equation in 1636, but he did not take the time to write the proof to it. The proof was developed over a number of years and finally confirmed in 2003.
Does anyone know what this is about? What is there that needs to be proved about the spiral?
I'd guess (cynic that I am) that they're just utterly, utterly confused, and are referring to FLT and getting both the dates and the problem wrong. -- g