The Law of Large Numbers

Posted in Computers & Technology, Humour by Elliott Back on January 29th, 2006.

From my cryptography textbook:

Suppose you want to factor a number of around 200 digits. The method used in elementary school is to divide n by all of the primes up to the square root of n. There are about 4 * 10⁹⁷ primes. The number of electrons in the universe is estimated to be less than 10⁹⁰. Long before you finish your calculation, you’ll get a call from the electric company asking you to stop.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 29th, 2006 at 9:37 pm and is tagged with law of large numbers, number of electrons, primes, square root, digits, textbook, universe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.

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triticale 2 years ago 1 point
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"Long before you finish your calculation, you'll get a call from the electric company asking you to stop."

That would be better than being arrested and charged with violating the law of large numbers.

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http://triticale.mu.nu

John 1 year ago 1 point
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Very correct and humerous indeed. Had there not been the concept of law of large numbers, the electricity companies would have to shut down their businesses.

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http://statistics.ueuo.com