Could you >factor a Mersenne number without storing it in memory? (Answer: I don't >*think* so....) Ptoo bad. If we could factor Mersenne numbers on an >unmodified TI-92+, then there'd be a lot of people who'd run that program. Uh, that's exactly what Prime95 does. To test whether a potential factor f divides 2^p-1, we use a standard binary powering algorithm to compute 2^p modulo f; it requires roughly log2(p) operations on numbers no bigger than f, and we never have to store the full representation of 2^p-1. I'm sure that this could be done on a TI. I don't know about ECM though. _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
