From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sun May 11 13:17:39 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2F308106566C for ; Sun, 11 May 2008 13:17:39 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mitchell@wyatt672earp.force9.co.uk) Received: from ptb-relay01.plus.net (ptb-relay01.plus.net [212.159.14.212]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AF2628FC1B for ; Sun, 11 May 2008 13:17:38 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from mitchell@wyatt672earp.force9.co.uk) Received: from [81.174.213.65] (helo=81-174-213-65.pth-as6.dial.plus.net) by ptb-relay01.plus.net with esmtp (Exim) id 1JvBBC-0005Em-41; Sun, 11 May 2008 14:01:30 +0100 From: Frank Mitchell To: staffslug@staffslug.org.uk, sc@mailman.lug.org.uk, freebsd-users@uk.freebsd.org, freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 13:53:34 +0100 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.6 (enterprise 20070904.708012) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200805111353.34551.mitchell@wyatt672earp.force9.co.uk> X-Plusnet-Relay: d63d77b19f6f7e9a044dc2b3872ffdac Cc: Subject: Primes With Complex Factors X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 13:17:39 -0000 When Gauss discovered Complex Numbers he found he could use them to factorise Primes. For instance 2 can be factorised as (1+i)*(1-i). Only half the Primes can be factorised like this, but there are Hypercomplex Numbers, like Quaternions, which can be used to carry the process further. Recently this topic seems to have attracted further research, and it seems to me this could be connected with Cryptography and its use of enormous Primes. Apparently the People's Republic of China are getting expert at cracking apparently uncrackable ciphers. Does anybody know more about this? Faictz Ce Que Vouldras: Frank Mitchell