Factoring applet

Here is an applet that factors a number by a method of your choosing. You can choose from trial division, Pollard's p-1 method or Pollard's rho method. I recommend that you try:

F₆=2^2⁶+1=18446744073709551617

Preferably on a slow machine. The difference between the methods is quite noticeable on the 166 mhz Pentium in my office.

Thanks to Brian Huffman's expression evaluating class, you can enter the number as an expression involving +, -, *, /, (, ), ^, and !.

The trial division part of the applet doesn't work with all versions of java. I could never figure out why.

Be warned that the the applet will hang if you give it a prime. You may want to verify that your number is composite using the Miller-Rabin Applet (Thanks to Derek Linke).

Here is the (poorly documented, and not very object oriented) code for the factoring.

mdrinen@willamette.edu

Last modified: Thu Sep 6 16:43:38 PDT 2001