纪录片《费马最后的定理》 第05期 数学家们的不断尝试（在线收听）

Fermat made lots of marginal notes.

费马写了相当多的页栏笔记

People took them as challenges and over the centuries every single one of them has been disposed of,

人们将那些视为挑战，数世纪以来，其中的每一条都已被解决后丢弃

and the last one to be disposed of is this one.

而最后一个要被丢弃的正是这个

That's why it's called the last theorem.

也就是称之为'最后定理'的原因

Rediscovering Fermat's proof became the ultimate challenge,

再现费马证明成为了终级挑战

a challenge which would baffle mathematicians for the next 300 years.

一个在接下来的300年里困扰着数学家们的挑战

Gauss, the greatest mathematician in the world...

高斯，世界上最伟大的数学家...

Oh yes, Galois... Kummer of course...

哦，是的，伽罗瓦(法国数学家)...当然还有库默尔(德国数学家)...

Well in the 18th-century Euler didn't prove it.

在18世纪，欧拉(瑞士数学家)没能证明它。

Well you know there's only been the one woman really... Sophie Germain.

要知道只有一个女人真正地...索菲·热尔曼(法国女数学家)。

Oh there are millions, there are lots of people.

哦，有数百万人，有许多人。

But nobody had any idea where to start.

但没人知道从哪儿着手

Well mathematicians just love a challenge and this problem,

数学家们只是喜欢挑战，而这个问题，

this particular problem just looked so simple, it just looked as if it had to have a solution,

这个特别的问题看来如此简单，看起来就像是它一定得有个解答，

and of course it's very special because Fermat said he had a solution.

当然它非常特别，因为费马说他对此有个解答。

Mathematicians had to prove that no numbers fitted this equation

数学家们得要证明没有数字可适于这个等式

but with the advent of computers, couldn't they check each number one by one and show that none of them fitted?

但随着计算机时代的到来，他们就不能一个个地试那些数字并表明没有适合的吗?