Eugene Olivier Carissan is best known for the development in the early years of the twentieth century of an early calculating machine, which was used to test numbers to see if they were primes.

Eugene Olivier Carissan was born in France in 1880. After attending the Saint-Cyr military academy he graduated as a sub lieutenant in 1902. He then served in the French army where he became a full lieutenant in the infantry. Carried over from his childhood into his military career was a strong, amateur interest in mathematics. When he left the military, Carissan was able to indulge his love of mathematics and he soon hit upon the idea of creating a machine to carry out basic, repetitive calculations. Beginning in 1912 Carissan, along with his brother Pierre (a mathematics teacher), designed and built several machines. The first proved unreliable, and the second prototype was started in 1913. But the advent...