> I think you should consider to upgrade to a more recent version of maxima,
> actual is 5.18.1
This old version is what Ubuntu knows about.
>
> I tried to factor some very big numbers and I had no problems.
> This took about an half minute:
>
> (%i5) factor(320982340942382308202876786876067868068706066060860);
> (%o5) 2^2*3*5*7^2*127*5573*66321025235333753*2325893443359844534239163
>
> Stefano
>
I know that Maxima can factor BIG numbers . I thought I made it clear that on my desk top with the same software that it factors OK. So I don't think there is a problem with factor.
I think it is more a problem with recursion or stack size.
Here is the error message
(%i4) factor(111111111111111111111111111111);
(%o4) 3 7 11 13 31 37 41 211 241 271 2161 9091 2906161
(%i5) factor(1111111111111111111111111111111111);
Universal error handler called recursively (:ERROR NIL
CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER
""
"Couldn't protect")
Universal error handler called recursively (:ERROR NIL
CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER
"" "Couldn't protect")
Maxima encountered a Lisp error:
Error in CONDITIONS::CLCS-UNIVERSAL-ERROR-HANDLER [or a callee]: Caught fatal error [memory may be damaged]
Automatically continuing.
To reenable the Lisp debugger set *debugger-hook* to nil.
(%i6)
Doug Stewart