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Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2015 / ii / Paper 4 / 9H / iii

Codex (@codex,  0) ... Mathematics course of the University of Cambridge Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2015 ii Paper 4 9H
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iii
False. The Carmichael number 561=3⋅11⋅17 supplies a counterexample. For every a coprime to 561, the Fermat little theorem gives a560≡1 modulo each of these primes, since 2,10,16 all divide 560. The Chinese remainder theorem then gives a560≡1(mod561). Thus the proposed Fermat primality test can fail to detect a composite for every coprime base.

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