I am testing two factoring algorithms: Pollard-Shor-Williams’s method, a home-grown version of the venerable Pollard rho algorithm and Pollard’s factoring with cubic integers. The second recipe is from “The Development of the Number Field Sieve” edited by Arjen K. Lenstra and Hendrik W. Lenstra, Jr. I use the 20-digit test number, 2 ^ 66 + 2 = 73786976294838206466. My method is very fast with this number as shown below:
2^66+2
73786976294838206466 20
Pseudo-Random Number Generator Seed = 1
Number of Tasks = 1
2 p 1
3 p 1
11 p 2
131 p 3
2731 p 4
409891 p 6
7623851 p 7
Elapsed hrs:min:sec.MS = 00:00:00.652
Function Evaluations = 1995
The Pollard factoring with cubic integers takes a long time but is capable of factoring much larger numbers. The results of the full factorization of my test number are:
== Data Menu ==
1 Simple Number
2 Fibonacci Sequence Number
3 Lucas Sequence Number
4 Exit
Enter option (1 – 4): 1
Enter a number to be factored: 2^66+2
Enter a random number generator seed: 1
== Factoring Menu ==
1 Lenstra’s ECM
2 Lenstra’s Pollard-Rho
3 Pollard’s Factoring with Cubic Integers
Option (1 – 3): 3
73786976294838206466
Enter a lower bound : -50000
Enter a upper bound : +50000
Enter b lower bound : +1
Enter b upper bound : +50000
Enter maximum kernels : 1024
Enter algebraic prime count: 300
Enter rational prime count: 300
Enter lo large prime bound: 10000
Enter hi large prime bound: 11000
Numbers sieved = 452239293
Successes 0 gcd(a, b) is 1 = 274929004
Successes 1 rational smooth a + b * r = 181838258
Successes 2 long long smooth = 68959
Successes 3 kernels tested = 535
2 p # digits 1
3 p # digits 1
11 p # digits 2
131 p # digits 3
2731 p # digits 4
409891 p # digits 6
7623851 p # digits 7
Runtime (s) = 36383.696000
It took over ten hours to fully factor, 2 ^ 66 + 2. I am currently attempting to factor the Thirteenth Fermat number which is 2 ^ (2 ^ 13) + 1 = 2 ^ 8192 + 1. The number has 2,467 decimal digits. I am using 399 algebraic prime numbers, 600 rational prime numbers, and 316 “large prime numbers” (primes between 12,000 and 15,000). I have to find the kernels of a 1316 by 1315 matrix. I am trying the factorization using a maximum of 8192 kernels. I suspect this computation will take about a week on my desktop workstation. There is no guarantee that I will find a non-trivial factor of 2 * (2731 ^ 3) + 2.
Numerical Explorations 