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math intro
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2022-08-26
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MATHEMATICAL REFLECTIONS
MATHEMATICAL REFLECTIONS is another
experiment. I hope that it becomes a
regular monthly feature of LOADSTAR.
The first few programs and articles
have already been written and will
appear in the next two issues of
LOADSTAR.
I invite you to submit articles and
programs which YOU have written in any
area of mathematics. You will receive
the usual PAYLOAD reward for published
programs and articles.
This is the first article in the
series and the detail I have given the
mathematical background is probably
too extensive, since it can all be
read in a good book on number theory.
I have a tendency to want articles and
programs to be self contained.
Whether or not you take the time to
follow some of the tedious arguments
in the text, I hope you enjoy the
program and understand why the method
works. It would be asking too much to
hope that everyone understands why the
method is so elegant, but I'll try.
Suppose you were asked to find the
largest number which is a divisor of
both 7440 and 41261. One sure-fire
method is to completely factor each
number into primes and then find all
primes in common to both. The product
of those primes is the answer. That
turns out to be more than is necessary
to solve the problem. The answer is
31 and is remarkably easy to
calculate. I hope you find it a real
gem.
Address correspondence, articles, and
programs to:
Al Vekovius
Loadstar
P.O. Box 30008
Shreveport, LA 71130-0008
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