Science News, June 23rd, 1990
Fermat-number factors
Two computer scientists have reached an important milestone on the road toward factoring ever-larger composite numbers. Last week, Arjen K. Lenstra of Bellcore in Morristown, N.J., and Mark S. Manasse of the Digital Equipment Corp. Systems Research Center in Palo Alto, Calif., finished factoring the tenth Fermat number, proving that this 155-digit behemoth is the product of three prime numbers.
Fermat numbers have the form 2'"+1, where m = [2.sup.n] and n is zero or a positive whole number. More than three centuries ago, French mathematician Pierre de Fermat conjectur...
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