gary@arizona.UUCP (01/13/84)
There was just a very strange article on NPR's All Things Considered. The claim was that a British mathematician had found a new way to find large primes quickly. One thing that confused me was a claim that this had to do with solving Fermat's Last Theorem. The story was a little hard to follow. There were the usual warnings that this could mean the end of all cryptographic systems. The fellow also claimed that his methods would solve the Three Body Problem. His name was Arnold Arnold (at least that's what it sounded like). According to the report, he is a loner without the usual academic creditials; according to him, this kept him free from the biases that have held back the rest of the mathematical world. Apparently he has published little and intends to sell his results. Has anyone heard other reports? If he has solved something that's interesting, I'd like to hear about it. If it is a case of bad reporting or charlantry, I'd like to know that, too. -- Gary Levin / Dept of CS / U of AZ / Tucson, AZ 85721 / (602) 621-4231