September 30, 2005
7:30 am

Courant & Robbins [p. 23]
I have generated 5 prime numbers using Euclid's method. Now to check that I haven't made any errors.

Factor[7]

Factor[43]

Factor[1807]

Factor[3263443]

Factor[10650056950807]

Factor[6]

Ooops!! Factor isn't doing what I thought it was.

Simplify[6]

FactorInteger[7]

There, that is the function I want. Now...

FactorInteger[10650056950807]

That hurts. There are some factors. I did make a mistake.

FactorInteger[43]

Dummy. I was right all along. I didn't look closely at the output. All of the factors were prime numbers. Still, there is a lesson here as well.