1810-1893

German mathematician who worked on the theory of functions and developed the concept of "ideal numbers," which played a major role in most subsequent attempts to solve Fermat's Last Theorem. This work also proved important to other areas of mathematics and, for his contribution, Kummer was awarded the Grand Prize by the Paris Academy of Sciences in 1857. Renowned as a fine teacher of mathematics, he was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences.