Ivan Mikheevich Pervushin

Who was Ivan Mikheevich Pervushin?

Ivan Mikheevich Pervushin was a Russian mathematician of the 2nd half of 19th century.

Pervushin was born in the town of Lysva of the Perm gubernia to a family of a clergyman. He graduated from Kazan clerical academy in 1852. Upon graduation, Pervushin was required to become a priest; he stayed for some time in Perm, then moved to a remote village of Zamaraevo, some 150 miles from Ekaterinburg, where he lived for 25 years.

The Priest's job provided for Pervushin's life and left him plenty of free time to spend on mathematics. Pervushin was particularly interested in number theory. In 1877 and in the beginning of 1878 he presented two papers to the Russian Academy of Sciences. In these papers, he proved that the 12th and 23rd Fermat numbers are composite:

is divisible by

and

is divisible by

In 1883 Pervushin demonstrated that the number:

= 2305843009213693951

is a Mersenne prime. This number became known as "Pervushin's number", and remained the second largest known prime until 1911, when Powers proved that is prime.

From Zamaraevo, Pervushin moved to the nearby town of Shadrinsk in 1883. Here Pervushin published an article that ridiculed the local government. As a punishment, he was exiled to the village of Mehonskoe in 1887.