The Strange Confluence of Mathematics and Engineering

Condensing six years of Ph.D. work into a 15-minute Thesis Defence talk can be a frustrating and humbling experience. Inevitably, a lot of material gets left on the cutting-room floor. I suspect that many a Ph.D. Candidate would longed for the chance to give the Directors Cut version of his material.

Well, this is my Director's cut.

This is the story of my hunt for Eisenstein pseudocubes: from its mathematical roots in the problem of proving primality, to its practical implementation on a piece of reprogrammable silicon. This talk introduces on the mathematics, the computer science, and the engineering involved in solving this curious little problem.