TITLE: Does this polynomial evaluate to prime number whenever $x$ is a natural number?
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: I am trying to prove or disprove following statment:

$x^2-31x+257$ evaluates to a prime number whenever $x$ is a natural number.

First of all, I realized that  we can't factorize this  polynomial  using its square root like
 $$ax^2+bx+c=a(x-x_1)(x-x_2)$$
because discriminant is negative, also I used excel for numbers from 1 to 1530 (just for checking), and yes it gives me prime numbers, unfortunately I dont know  what the formula is, which evaluates  every natural number for given input, maybe we may write
$x_{k+1}=k+1$     for $k=0,\ldots\infty$, but how can I use  this  recursive statment?
I have tried  instead of  $x$, put $k+1$ in this polynomial, and so I got
$$(k+1)^2-31k+257=k^2+2k+1-31k+257=k^2-29k+258$$
but now this last  polynomial for $k=1$ evaluates to $259-29=230$, which is not prime, but are my steps correct? Please help me.

REPLY [15 votes]: There are obvious counterexamples [hint: $\,f(0)=p\Rightarrow p\mid f(pn)\,$] and this idea leads to a general proof that no such prime-producing polynomial exists.
However, you probably wonder why the first $32$ values are all prime. To explain that, notice that if you shift x by $16$ then it becomes $\rm\:f(x) = x^2 + x + 17.\:$ Now one may apply the following theorem on prime-producing polynomials (generalizing the famous example $\rm\:x^2+x+41\:$ noticed by Euler), noting that the ring of integers of $\rm\:\mathbb Q(\sqrt{-67})\:$ is a UFD.
Theorem $\ $ The polynomial $\rm\ f(x)\ =\ (x-\alpha)\:(x-\alpha')\ =\ x^2 + x + k\ $ assumes only prime values for $\rm\ 0\ \le\ x\ \le\ k-2 \ \iff\ \mathbb Z[\alpha]\ $ is a PID.
Hint $\: (\Rightarrow)\ $ Show all primes $\rm\ p\le\sqrt{n},\, n=1\!-\!4k\,$ have $\rm \left[\frac{n}p\right]\! = -1,\,$ i.e. $\rm\! \bmod p\!:\rm\, n\,$ is nonsquare, so no primes split/ramify.
For proofs, see e.g. Cohn, Advanced Number Theory, pp. 155-156, or Ribenboim, My numbers, my friends, 5.7 p.108.  Note: both proofs employ the bound $\rm\ p < \sqrt{n}\ $ without explicitly mentiioning that this is a consequence of the Minkowski bound - presumably assuming that is obvious to the reader based upon earlier results. Thus you'll need to read the prior sections on the Minkowski bound. Compare Stewart and Tall, Algebraic number theory and FLT, 3ed, Theorem 10.4 p.176 where the use of the Minkowski bound is mentioned explicitly.
Alternatively see the self-contained paper [1] which proceeds a bit more simply, employing Dirichlet approximation to obtain a generalization of the Euclidean algorithm  (the Dedekind-Rabinowitsch-Hasse criterion for a PID). If memory serves correct, this is close to the approach originally employed by Rabinowitsch when he first published this theorem in 1913.
[1] Daniel Fendel, Prime-Producing Polynomials and Principal Ideal Domains,
Mathematics Magazine, Vol. 58, 4, 1985, 204-210