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From: Bruce Stephens on 26 Mar 2010 15:18
adacrypt <austin.obyrne(a)hotmail.com> writes:

[...]

> I have done some considerable work in the past factoring large numbers
> by conventional methods and for some time I wrongly believed that the
> crunch came when the computer could not store the very large parent
> number being tested by the string of candidates ie. the largest +ve
> integer that can be stored in 32 bit arithmetic is 2147483647.

> I next assumed that because of this the computation would have to be
> done externally by hand - hence the time taken ?

Wrong.

> Current research is
> into methods that will get around this ?

No.

> How rigth or wrong is this hypothesis ?

Exactly as wrong as it was a year ago when this came up last:
<http://groups.google.com/group/sci.crypt/browse_frm/thread/4a5352739ef5519f>

There's a new twist this year in that you're simultaneously arguing that
computers are decimal. The two claims seem inconsistent: why should a
decimal computer have difficulty performing arithmetic on numbers larger
than 2147483647?

So you've concurrently got two belief systems each wrong in several ways
and which are mutually inconsistent. Is this some kind of attempt to
imitate Robert E. McElwaine?
From: Bruce Stephens on 26 Mar 2010 17:29
WTShaw <lurens1(a)gmail.com> writes:

> On Mar 26, 1:18 pm, Bruce Stephens <bruce+use...(a)cenderis.demon.co.uk>
> wrote:
>> adacrypt <austin.oby...(a)hotmail.com> writes:
>>
>> There's a new twist this year in that you're simultaneously arguing that
>> computers are decimal.  The two claims seem inconsistent: why should a
>> decimal computer have difficulty performing arithmetic on numbers larger
>> than 2147483647?
>
> Decimal still means base 10 and digital does mean alternatively having
> 10 digits.

So? My point is that if 2147483647 is special in some way that surely
indicates something's binary, not decimal. 8589934592 also has 10
digits, so why wouldn't that be allowed?

>> So you've concurrently got two belief systems each wrong in several ways
>> and which are mutually inconsistent.  Is this some kind of attempt to
>> imitate Robert E. McElwaine?
>
> Sounds like a religious argument against denominations, there being of
> course none like that here?

Perhaps, though if you mean "religious" to imply that there's no
relevant evidence, or that the views are equivalent, then I'd disagree.

On the other hand <http://xkcd.com/386/> surely applies.
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