Re: Factorizaton idea, revisited

From: Douglas A. Gwyn (DAGwyn_at_null.net)
Date: 04/30/04 

Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 23:11:26 -0400

James Harris wrote:
> "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net> wrote ...
>>Sorry, but I'm still wondering what the "j" and "k"
>>are supposed to be. Is k a subscript, exponent, or
>>factor?
> The variables j and k are parameters used in the factorization so they
> are neither subscript, exponent, nor factor.

But in your formula there was a subexpression "jk".
Is that not supposed to be pow(j,k), j sub k, or j*k?
What else could it be intended to represent? Under
any of these meanings, the formula is not an
algebraic identity.

> Not really, if it works (not sure it does) it'd make factoring M a
> problem of factoring M+1 or M-1, and if M is odd, you have one factor
> off the bat, which is 2. It turns out that you can choose M+1 or M-1,
> so you also have 3 as a factor.

Okay, I'll grant you that if it worked in general the
recursion would have at most lg(N) steps, where at
each step all factors of 2 are divided out.

Since I don't yet understand the formula, which
appears on its face to be algebraically incorrect,
I don't know whether the method can work.

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