ALL meanings of fermat prime
- noun Technical meaning of fermat prime (mathematics) A prime number of the form 2^2^n + 1. Any prime number of the form 2^n+1 must be a Fermat prime. Fermat conjectured in a letter to someone or other that all numbers 2^2^n+1 are prime, having noticed that this is true for n=0,1,2,3,4. No further Fermat primes are known; several have been factorised, and several more have been proved composite without finding explicit factorisations. 1
- noun fermat prime (number theory) A prime number which is one more than a power of two. 0