4 ms·
Factoring numbers is difficult. Manipulating digits is easy, or it looks that way, but this is partially an illusion resulting from the number being given to yo
by thaumasiotes 3y ago
Factoring numbers is difficult. Manipulating digits is easy, or it looks that way, but this is partially an illusion resulting from the number being given to you with the digits already known.
If you have a quantity in mind but you're not sure what its digits are, it can be a lot of work to learn.
- Dylan16807 3y agoI don't know what you mean by "not sure what its digits are". If you mean what base to represent the number in, that's no more arbitrary than knowing the exact way Gödel numbers use primes.
- pmontra 3y agoMaybe it's an unfair example but: the number of people on Earth. We know the quantity more or less, the leftmost digit in base ten, then it's a lot of work to figure out the other digits.
- Dylan16807 3y agoDefinitely unfair, because we're discussing this as a way to encode and decode a string of numbers into a single number, no measurements involved. And factoring the number of people on earth would be just as hard.