From: IN%"perry@piermont.com" 28-NOV-1995 02:02:17.85 Indeed. Its the problem with innumeracy. People don't understand that if, say, a problem is O(2^N), and a problem of size 1000 requires a liter of fluid, a problem of size 2000 requires --------------------------- Now that I've looked at it a bit more, I would definitely agree... exponential growth is quite a function. Incidentally, talking about it in liters of fluid is probably not the best way to look at it, any more than computer chips can be best defined in square centimeters. But that doesn't change the essential conclusion; it just alters how big of a problem you need to use. The lesson here, I believe, is to use as large of a key/etcetera as possible... something that should be news to none, even to novices like me. Never assume that something will require too much computing power, until the computing power needed is not doable in the universe. Then add some, since (for some problems) someone might figure out a clever way around them. I worry that factoring may be one of these. -Allen