5 ms·

I think he was referring to number theory, which would be a lot more obscure if not for public-key cryptography.

• archgoon 16y ago
  Number Theory is not obscure, and was not obscure before cryptography. There's a reason why they're called "Gaussian Integers", and "Fermat Primes". It's been around for a long time, and studied by most mathematicians. It's also part of the California State Standards. I can only assume that the definition of 'obscure' here refers to the vast majority of an mathematics undergraduate curriculum. Which is absurd. An aside, one of the key points of public key cryptography, Fermat's Theorem, a^p=a mod p, is a Group Theoretic concept.
  • eru 16y ago
    Number theory was obscure in the sense, that nobody found any use for its more advanced theorems.
  • wnoise 16y ago
    > I can only assume that the definition of 'obscure' here refers to the vast majority of an mathematics undergraduate curriculum. Which is absurd. It's not absurd at all. "Obscure" is relative to a given population. The relevant population here is not "mathematicians". The majority is indeed obscure to those outside the field. If you use "inside the field" you get absurdities such as homology being counted as not obscure. Calculus, and geometry are not obscure. Many non-mathematicians have heard of these, and some even use them. Both group theory and number theory are obscure. I say this as someone who uses the representation theory of groups regularly.