[945] in Professors_Quote_Board
Prof. Vogan (18.703)
ryanb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (ryanb@ATHENA.MIT.EDU)
Wed Mar 22 17:37:44 1995
"How do you tell if a big number is prime? Well, of course it depends on
what `big' is. For a number which is big for a mathematician, like 91, you
try (dividing by) 2, but that doesn't go in, and after that maybe you need
a calculator..."
And after noting that this procedure for 100-digit numbers could
take about 10^{29} years at around a Gflop, explained an algorithm for which
you only need to do
"...three or four hundred multiplications of 100-digit numbers, which is
absolutely trivial: you could even do it by hand in a couple of weeks."
