Fermat's little theorem
Pequeño teorema de Fermat
- Date
- 1640 · confidence high
- Place
- Toulouse, France
- Credited to
- Pierre de Fermat
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What was discovered
In a letter to Bernard Frénicle de Bessy dated 18 October 1640, Fermat stated that if p is a prime number, then a^p − a is divisible by p for every integer a, without publishing a proof.
Fermat did not publish a proof; the first known proof was published by Leonhard Euler in 1736, nearly a century later.
What it led to
- foundation of modular number theory
- Fermat primality tests and pseudoprimes
- mathematical basis of encryption algorithms such as RSA