**Summary.** Search for "Weil formules explicites". Jonathan says in a comment that he is looking for a statement by Weil "that explicitly mentions prime numbers". This reminds me of his paper *Sur les "formules explicites" de la théorie des nombres premiers.* Comm. Sém. Math. Univ. Lund (1952). Tome Supplementaire, 252–265. The review of this paper in [Math Reviews][1] says : > The most striking result of the paper > is as follows. The author defines a > distribution (too complicated to > define here) whose positivity is > equivalent to the simultaneous truth > of the Riemann hypothesis for the > Artin-Hecke $L$-series and the Artin > conjecture on their entirety. This > situation is analogous to the case of > curves over finite fields for which > the Riemann hypothesis is a > consequence of the positivity of the > trace in the ring of correspondences. Let me also mention a paper by Burnol in the *Comptes Rendus*, of which the review says > As is known, the proof of A. Weil of > the analog for algebraic curves of the > Riemann hypothesis (R.H.) relies upon > the equivalence of this hypothesis > with the positivity of a suitable > Hermitian form. Weil, again, remarked > that also the original R.H. for > $L(s,\chi)$ (the $L$-function > associated to the Dirichlet character > $\chi$) holds if and only if $Z(g\ast > g^\tau)=\sum_{\rho}\widehat{g}(\rho)\overline{\widehat{g}(\overline{1-\rho})}\geq > 0$ for every smooth compactly > supported $g$, where $\rho$ runs over > the critical zeros of $L(s,\chi),\ > \widehat{g}$ is the Mellin transform > of $g$ and > $g^\tau(u)=\overline{u^{-1}g(u^{-1})}$. **Addendum.** It goes without saying that one should also read Weil's own commentary on his paper in vol. II of his *Collected Papers*. [1]:http://www.ams.org/mathscinet/search/publdoc.html?arg3=&co4=AND&co5=AND&co6=AND&co7=AND&dr=all&pg4=AUCN&pg5=TI&pg6=PC&pg7=ALLF&pg8=ET&review_format=html&s4=weil&s5=formules%2520explicites&s6=&s7=&s8=All&vfpref=html&yearRangeFirst=&yearRangeSecond=&yrop=eq&r=2&mx-pid=53152