Barebones P256: There Is Beauty in Elliptic Curves

The basic form of an elliptic curve is y² = x² + ax +b, and a plot of y² = x³-3x+10 is [here]:

For the NIST P256 curve, we have a finite field defined by the prime number of p=2²⁵⁶−2²²⁴+2¹⁹²+2⁹⁶−1. The other…