From: Jiri Baum <jirib@sweeney.cs.monash.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 19 Dec 95 16:27:58 PST
To: tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)
Subject: Re: What ever happened to... Cray Comp/NSA co-development
In-Reply-To: <acfa2f2812021004d314@[205.199.118.202]>
Message-ID: <199512200022.LAA28002@sweeney.cs.monash.edu.au>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


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Hello,

tcmay wrote:
...
> Prime Factoring? Primes are easy to factor, of course. (Hint: Every prime
> has two factors.)
...

Can someone enlighten me as to what the two factors are?

With sensible definitions I've heard you either get one (just itself)
or four (itself [p], both units [1,-1] and the co-whatsitsname [-p]).

(Sorry to pick on tcmay, but usually when you factorise a number you
*never* put it a "1*", for example:
  6 = 2*3
  9 = 3*3*3
and
  7 = 7
not
  7 = 1*7
, so I suspect the usual statement would be "Every prime has one factor.".)


Or am I totally clueless?

Jiri
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If you want an answer, please mail to <jirib@cs.monash.edu.au>.
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