Abstract
We discuss mechanised proofs of Fermat’s Little Theorem in a variety of styles, focusing in particular on an elegant combinatorial “necklace” proof that has not been mechanised previously. What is elegant in prose turns out to be long-winded mechanically, and so we examine the effect of explicitly appealing to group theory. This has pleasant consequences both for the necklace proof, and also for the direct number-theoretic approach.
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Chan, HL., Norrish, M. (2012). A String of Pearls: Proofs of Fermat’s Little Theorem. In: Hawblitzel, C., Miller, D. (eds) Certified Programs and Proofs. CPP 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7679. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35308-6_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35308-6_16
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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