6.4 beginning, due October 19

1. (Difficult): I understand what the p-q factoring algorithm is saying, but I still don't understand why it works. How do the bj's make it work? Could we do an example in class?

2. (Reflection): It's really simple and often doesn't work because it's too time consuming, but I still think that the Fermat factorization method is pretty. Cool. It makes sense and you can still factor a pretty big number pretty quickly if it's close enough to a square.