Today is the 410th birthday of Pierre de Fermat, born on August 17, 1601 in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, France. He was a lawyer but was best known for his work in mathematics, as illustrated by today’s Google Logo.

In the math field he is known for Number theory, Analytic geometry, Fermat’s principle, Probability and Fermat’s Last Theorem. He helped form what differential calculus is today.

He died on January 12, 1665 at the age of 63 in Castres, France.

Google being a math company wanted to celebrate his life and contributions with a special Google logo, aka Doodle. Google’s alternative text behind the logo reads, “I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this theorem, which this doodle is too small to contain.”

I am not mathematician, but one Google user is asking if the equation written in the logo is correct or actually wrong. A Google Web Search Help thread wrote:

Forum discussion at Google Blogoscoped Forums.