Francois Proth

(1852 - 1879)

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Francois Proth was a self-taught farmer, who lived all his short life in the village of

"Vaux devant Damloup" near Verdun in France.

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He produced four theorems that can be used for testing the primality of integers. The most famous one is called Proth' s theorem.

PROTH' S THEOREM (1878):

Let N = k*2ⁿ + 1 with k < 2ⁿ

If there is an integer a such that a^((N-1)/2) = -1 (mod N), then N is prime !

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