Prime Decomposition of 10th Fermat Number/Historical Note

Historical Note on Prime Decomposition of 10th Fermat Number
$F_{10}$ was proved composite in $1952$ by using Pépin's Test on the SWAC, but at that time the factors had yet to be determined.

discovered the factor $45 \, 592 \, 577$ in $1953$, also using the SWAC.

At the same time he discovered the factor $825 \, 753 \, 601$ of $F_{16}$.

discovered the factor $6 \, 487 \, 031 \, 809$ in $1962$ on an IBM 704.

later found that the cofactor was a $291$-digit composite number.

The factors of this $291$-digit composite were finally found by in $1995$.

As he explained in his $1999$ article, the reason why the factors of $F_{11}$ were found so much earlier is that the second largest factor of $F_{11}$ had a mere $22$ digits, as opposed to the $40$ digits of that of $F_{10}$.

It may be noted that the author of this page performed this exercise in $2020$ using a factorisation tool freely available online, running on a machine of modest specifications.

It took just under $7$ hours in total.