Pietro Cataldi

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Pietro Antonio Cataldi (April 15, 1552 - February 11, 1626) was an Italian mathematician. A citizen of Bologna, he taught mathematics and astronomy and also worked on military problems. His work included the development of continued fractions and a method for their representation. He discovered the sixth and seventh Mersenne primes in 1588. He held the record for the largest known prime for 184 years, until Leonhard Euler discovered that 231 - 1 was the eighth Mersenne prime, in 1772.

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