Sums of digits and other tricks and factor()

Hi Richard,

>>>>> "Richard" == Richard Hennessy <rich.hennessy at verizon.net> writes:

    Richard> My mistake.  I don't know very much about how factor works.

It is not so much a problem of how factor works, but is almost
surely an inherent problem.
We know since a few years that testing primality is in complexity
class *P* (though in practice we do not use the AKS algorithm) and
therefore  _fast_, we do not know much about factoring -  whether
it is in *NP* or even *NP*-complete. All we know is that all
algorithms  presently known have a runtime complexity greater than
polynomial.
In fact if factoring were found to be in *P* it would shatter
a lot of current cryptographic techniques. so most people think
factoring is inherently *hard*.

'Andreas
-- 
ceterum censeo redmondinem esse delendam.