Makeup: Pattern Hunting in the Prime Numbers

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

As it was a talk, there were a lot of various Theorems that were mentioned. I would say understanding them all in that context would be fairly difficult.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I thought that the Toa Theorem was very interesting. It is really cool to see all the crazy things people can think up. As well, there was a very very large number that was cool, (and thought to be prime.)

16.5, due 5 December

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

The subtle point mentioned on page 366 was a little interesting. I had to think about why we could use inverses, like they said.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think it is very interesting how elliptic curves are so similar to discrete logs. I think it is cool that you can use either method, and to see that each has their various advantages and disadvantages.

16.2, due 28 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

This section begins to map ideas used in the past onto elliptic curves. Sometimes it was difficult to fully make the crossover in my mind.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I found the difficulty of attacking elliptic curves interesting. I think it is cool that some of the attacks that work on a discrete logarithm do not work on elliptic curves. They seem to be very interesting mathematical objects.

16.1, due 26 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

The idea of elliptic curves is new to me. Thus, thinking about all the different intricacies was the most difficult part for me.
What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think using elliptic curves for cryptography is very interesting. I am excited to see how they play out and what we will be able to do with them.

Enigma machine, due 20 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

I like thinking about all the challenging mechanical problems faced by the code crackers. Today, I would think "hey let's write a program". However, they actually had to build machines that would do this.
What was the most interesting part of the material?

I find it very interesting the vast variety of sources that helped to crack the code in this "real world" example. It was not just a single equation or method. It was a tireless back in forth of finding out more information, implementing it, working hard to brute force some things, coming across another piece of valuable information, etc.

19.3 and online reading, due 19 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

I am still wrapping my head around the ket notation. As well, the quantum Fourier transform was difficult to understand.

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think it is really interesting how quantum computers change the computing paradigm. I liked how the online article pointed out that it is not simply a super-parallel computing device. There are still considerations we must have, and we must still understand how to exploit the structure of the problem we are solving.

19.1-19.2, due on 16 November

What was the most difficult part of the material for you?

The Quantum mechanics. I didn't follow everything about the different bases, etc. 

What was the most interesting part of the material?

I think the idea of Quantum computing is very exciting and interesting. It seems like it would change a lot of how we do things. I am hopeful that we will see them come to fruiting sometime in our lives.