1. The p-1 Factoring Algorithm is the hardest part for me to understand. It seems somewhat arbitrary, and I think that's why it's hard to understand how to exactly apply it. It says to choose a bound B, but it seems like that can be such an arbitrary number. For example, if I choose a=2 then a bound (as far as I understand it) would be 3? But that seems like those two choices won't do any good for me. It feels like there should be more guidelines for choosing B. Other than that, it seems like the algorithm is just a loop of calculations.
2. The most interesting part was the very first part of the reading assignment. It was nice to see something reduced so simply back to fundamental algebra (in this case reducing factoring down to a difference of squares idea). Then all that's left to do is run the repeated loop computing n+1^2 and so forth. However, as the text points out, this could take a long time for large primes.
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