Fermat Number - Pseudoprimes and Fermat Numbers

Pseudoprimes and Fermat Numbers

Like composite numbers of the form 2p − 1, every composite Fermat number is a strong pseudoprime to base 2. Because all strong pseudoprimes to base 2 are also Fermat pseudoprimes - i.e.

for all Fermat numbers.

Because it is generally believed that all but the first few Fermat numbers are composite, this makes it possible to generate infinitely many strong pseudoprimes to base 2 from the Fermat numbers.

In 1964, Rotkiewicz showed that the product of any number of prime or composite Fermat numbers will be a Fermat pseudoprime to the base 2.

Read more about this topic:  Fermat Number

Famous quotes containing the word numbers:

    The barriers of conventionality have been raised so high, and so strangely cemented by long existence, that the only hope of overthrowing them exists in the union of numbers linked together by common opinion and effort ... the united watchword of thousands would strike at the foundation of the false system and annihilate it.
    Mme. Ellen Louise Demorest 1824–1898, U.S. women’s magazine editor and woman’s club movement pioneer. Demorest’s Illustrated Monthly and Mirror of Fashions, p. 203 (January 1870)