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Whether there's a use for 40 digits or 40 trillion digits, needing more accuracy is not why we find these numbers. There's no 'need' for this at all. The same w
by WilliamEdward 8y ago
Whether there's a use for 40 digits or 40 trillion digits, needing more accuracy is not why we find these numbers. There's no 'need' for this at all. The same way there's no 'need' to find bigger prime numbers. We're just seeing how far we can go, maybe seeing a new pattern emerge.
- klohto 8y ago> The same way there's no 'need' to find bigger prime numbers. From cryptography standpoint, there is always a need to find bigger prime number. I wouldn't compare this with a Pi.
- XorNot 8y agoFinding a change in the behavior of Pi that emerges at high precisions would be a significant discovery.
- frutiger 8y agoHow does finding a bigger prime help or hinder cryptography? And with many forms of cryptography (e.g. DH kex, ECC) primes only enter as the modulus of the modular arithmetic where being larger is usually not particularly helpful.
- benchaney 8y agoFinding bigger prime numbers has no impact on cryptography at all. The large prime numbers needed for cryptography are a few hundred digits long. The are generated by picking a random numbers and checking it’s neighbors for primality. The largest prime numbers that have been discovered have millions of digits. Finding a larger prime would have no effect whatsoever on our ability to quickly generate primes with a few hundred digits.