(February 9, 2022 at 12:11 am)Fireball Wrote:(February 8, 2022 at 10:50 pm)polymath257 Wrote: I am a polyamorous mathematician who likes to learn things. The number 257 is a Fermat prime.
I looked up Fermat primes, and was saddened that 256^2 + 1 was not prime. Those kind of facts are why I dug into math as a kid. Now that I'm old, I've forgotten most of it.Use it or lose it is so true.
Actually, 256^2 +1 =65537 *is* prime. The next one, 65536^2 +1 is not.