Re: A factoring algorithm

"Pubkeybreaker" <Robert_silverman@raytheon.com> writes:
> > Of course, the only way to get someone experienced in the
> > field to have a look at the algorithm is to make it public.
> > I wouldn't expect any effort to be expended by said experts
> > before then. Their precious time can also be saved by _not_
> > wasting it writing knee-jerk dismissals.
>
>
> Maybe you would like to insult Eric Bach while you are at it?

My bluntness may be as insulting to you as your bluntness is to
others, but I believe my message has not been an insulting one.
In fact I believe much of what I have said has been complementary.

I've only echanged e-mails with Bach a few times, and he seemed
a wonderfully polite chap. Maybe it was because I was in dialogue
with him about a paper of his that he assumed had faded into
obscurity.

> "The world does not need another O(N^1/4) algorithm" is something
> Eric said to me back in the 90's at a conference. He too had invented
> a
> new O(N^1/4) algorithm based upon ideas from Schroeppel's linear list
> sieve.
> His comment was that his work wasn't worth publishing because the world
> did not need another exponential time algorithm.

If he was so dissatisfied with its worth - why did he waste his
time on it? Perhaps he was hoping it might lead to something better?

> At the time Pollard Rho, Squfof, and Lehman's algorithms became
> public, (early 70's) the best algorithms were CFRAC, and trial
> division. The new
> algorithms were substantial improvments on the latter.
>
> The art has advanced considerably since then. We don't need to
> reinvent a square wheel.

Do you really believe that all investigations that fail to improve
the state of the art are pedagogically useless?

If so, then we will have to disagree on matters of pedagogy.
It not, then appears that you consider your involvement in this
pedagogy to be that of chief tomato-thrower. I believe such a
role is beneath you.

Phil

-- 
What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?
-- Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), The Twilight of the Gods