Fermat’s Little Theorem and Applications at Collège Stanislas

On January 24, 2025, Emmanuel Royer gave a two-hour talk to Terminale students enrolled in the advanced mathematics specialization at Collège Stanislas in Montréal (a French school abroad of the AEFE network). The aim of the talk was to show how a topic in the arithmetic curriculum—Fermat’s little theorem—although dating back to 1640, underwent 20th-century extensions that underpin today’s secure Internet communications.

A full professor at the Université Clermont-Auvergne, Emmanuel Royer is on CNRS institutional delegation to direct the CRM-CNRS.