Comment on New largest prime number discovered by former Nvidia software engineer
_bcron_@lemmy.world 12 hours agoNobody will use this math in our lifetime.
That’s a presumption. Have you ever considered that there’s a non-zero chance that you’re wrong?
just_another_person@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
It’s not a presumption when there is no basis for it all. It’s a fucking fact.
If there was a segment of society that said “Hey, we really want to do this thing, but we really just need the highest prime number possible! Why won’t anyone find that for us?” Then I’d say OK.
You’ve got a guy out to beat a record and get his name on the books here. Useless.
catloaf@lemm.ee 12 hours ago
That segment exists. That’s literally why they are continually trying to find larger primes.
just_another_person@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Again, to what use?
catloaf@lemm.ee 12 hours ago
No idea, I’m neither a cryptographer nor mathematician. All I know is that they’re used somehow. Something about multiplying two large primes to get a big number. Apparently it’s a challenge to factor that number to derive the original primes, and that challenge is what makes breaking a cryptographic algorithm difficult.