The Nature of Mathematics, 12th Edition
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Chapter 6 Projects

Section 6.4 Individual Research

Project 6.2

Write out a derivation of the quadratic formula.

References:

You can check almost any high school algebra book.

Project 6.4

Find any replacements for x, y, and z such that xn + yn  = zn, where n is greater than 2 and where x, y, and z are counting numbers.  Write a history of this problem, known as Fermat's Last Theorem.

References:

A source I recommend highly is the movie The Proof one of PBS's shows on the NOVA series. The web page for this move is:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/proof/
Another general overview is at this site:
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/HistTopics/Fermat's_last_theorem.html

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