Monday, October 18, 2010

6.3, Due on October 20

This whole section was interesting to me and I enjoyed learning about ways to get around factoring numbers. I found the methods to be very intelligent solutions to a very difficult problem. It's wise of mathematicians to realize that it's a lot easier to see if a number is composite then to see if it's prime, and since a number can't be both you only need to check for one or the other condition. One thing I like about mathematics is that it uses efficient methods to solve difficult problems and this is definitely one such case. I also find it interestesting that as important as primes are we still have no way to determine if a very large number is prime. Mathematics is definitely a living field with intriguing problems still existing today.
The actual primality tests were difficult to follow. Fermat's test was easier to understand (at least the suppositions) but the latter two tests were much more difficult to read and follow. Their preceding arguments were bolstered by examples but I so not understand what exactly is going one with these tests.

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