Pierre de Fermat

About Pierre de Fermat

Pierre de Fermat (1601–1665) was a highly influential French mathematician, jurist, and statesman of the 17th century. While a lawyer by profession, he made profound contributions to mathematics, most famously developing calculus methods independently of Newton and Leibniz, and co-founding modern probability theory with Blaise Pascal. His most enduring legacy is Fermat's Last Theorem, a conjecture he famously noted he had a "truly marvelous proof" for, though the actual proof remained elusive to others until the late 20th century. MIT’s Pantheon project ranks him at #615 in overall historical importance based on his wide-ranging cultural impact.

Despite his high historical standing, Fermat’s modern digital footprint is comparatively small. He registered an HPI Rank of #615 but only accrued 127K annualized Wikipedia pageviews in 2025. This performance translates to an Attention Gap of -3x, indicating he receives only a third of the attention one might expect relative to his historical stature. For contrast, Bertrand Russell, a later mathematician ranked #741, commanded 962K views in the same year, over seven times Fermat's traffic.

Furthermore, the trajectory of his limited attention suggests a mild decline: his 2025 pageviews were down 16.1% year-over-year, and his Q1 vs. Q3 momentum also dropped by 5%, suggesting his small niche of online attention is currently shrinking.