Solved cryptogram
Multiplying two big primes is easy, and undoing the multiplication is hard enough to hide a secret.
Mathematics Facts, sourced to Wolfram MathWorld.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 81 letters over 19 different ones, graded medium.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
This asymmetry is what public key cryptography rests on. Anyone can be handed the product and use it to lock a message, while only the holder of the two factors can unlock one. Multiplying two numbers of a few hundred digits takes a moment; splitting the product back apart has no method fast enough to finish in a human lifetime. No one has proved that a fast method cannot exist, which is the uncomfortable part.
The claim comes from Wolfram MathWorld.
- SourceWolfram MathWorld
- CollectionMathematics Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length81 letters, 19 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- MacTutor History of Mathematicsmedium, 72 letters
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About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
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