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Largest prime number discovered (so far)!
- Thread starter stonyc
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grapes911
Moderator emeritu
Here is a good article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_key_cryptography
Basically though, RSA (and others) is built on the assumption that when prime numbers are large enough, they're nearly impossible to generate and determine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_key_cryptography
Basically though, RSA (and others) is built on the assumption that when prime numbers are large enough, they're nearly impossible to generate and determine.
clayj
macrumors 604
You're kidding, right? Should we all drop EVERYTHING we're doing and concentrate on fixing one problem at a time? Because world hunger is a problem that is realistically NEVER going to go away.muffinman said:
And I can think of bigger problems than people going hungry. Let's all stop everything we're doing and concentrate on... hmm... getting rid of ALL weapons. While we're doing that, we won't invest one thin dime in researching cures for diseases, alternative energy sources, or anything else that's science.
Maybe you wanna pour your money and time into aiding the hungry... but that doesn't mean we all have to do it.
muffinman
macrumors 6502
😛
Well, that might be taking it a bit to far 😛
I'm not saying that everything should be dropped and all attention should be diverted to saving the children. And yet, more light should be shined down on this subject. The same with the people in Darfour province in Africa. The same with the struggles of the North Koreans.
And yet, there are some things in this world that have a higher priority than others. While finding the largest prime number might be the number one task for someone, in the big scheme of things, it does not really mean much. Our prime (no pun intended) task is do focus on things that could further humanity.
That is not to say that we should not be doing other things.🙂 🙂
clayj said:
Well, that might be taking it a bit to far 😛
I'm not saying that everything should be dropped and all attention should be diverted to saving the children. And yet, more light should be shined down on this subject. The same with the people in Darfour province in Africa. The same with the struggles of the North Koreans.
And yet, there are some things in this world that have a higher priority than others. While finding the largest prime number might be the number one task for someone, in the big scheme of things, it does not really mean much. Our prime (no pun intended) task is do focus on things that could further humanity.
That is not to say that we should not be doing other things.🙂 🙂
clayj
macrumors 604
Well, in all seriousness, the problems in the countries you mentioned (Sudan, North Korea), as well as the problems in OTHER countries (Somalia, China, most of the rest of Africa), are often the result of their own governments or people. Sudan/Darfour is experiencing a civil war with ethnic and religious origins. North Korea is run by a psycho. Somalia was (and perhaps still is) run by warlords who care even less about their people than YOU do.muffinman said:
So if you're proposing that we go into these countries and displace their leadership, I'm with ya. Throwing charity at them usually doesn't work, as whoever's in charge there usually takes the charity for themselves or lets it spoil on the docks.
Until such time as things change and charity does not equal pouring your money down a rat hole, I'd rather spend money on scientific endeavours that will at least benefit SOMEONE.
andiwm2003
macrumors 601
clayj said:
not very PC but i agree with you.
as for the basic research: 2500 years of experience show that pointless research in the long run leads often to huge benefits for humanity. on top of that knowledge has a value of its own.
also, the people working on this pointless prime number are now probably extremly qualified in mathematics, cryptography and what not. these people are now available to the job market and will do useful things.
not any more
Not anymore, using the same law I can make a new biggest prime number:
2^(2^30402457 - 1) - 1
2^(2^(2^30402457 - 1) - 1) -1
etc etc
Not anymore, using the same law I can make a new biggest prime number:
2^(2^30402457 - 1) - 1
2^(2^(2^30402457 - 1) - 1) -1
etc etc
savar
macrumors 68000
grapes911 said:
Quantum computing will (theoretically) give us constant time algorithms for factoring primes. It doesn't matter how large they are. If QC was suddenly available tomorrow, it would break every public key encryption system on the planet. (The result would be utter catastrophe, let's hope we have new algorithms in place before QC arrives.)
The same technology may let us generate and test new algorithms to perform encryption. So the cure may arrive along with the ailment.savar said:
Even more fascinating is the idea that, because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, a communication system could be set up so that a message is destroyed by the act of reading it. While messages could be stolen, this couldn't be done without modifying the message. Therefore, any message that arrives intact is known not to have been observed in transit!
