new advance in prime number testing

carl just posted this to the freelists tuning-math group:

http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/primality.pdf

the paper includes a very simple program that, it seems, is the
fastest prime number test yet devised. if manuel and robert (creators
of scala and fractal tune smithy, respectively) do primality testing
in their programs, they might want to revamp their algorithms . . .

--- In metatuning@y..., "X. J. Scott" <xjscott@e...> wrote:
> on 8/8/02 6:01 PM, paulerlich at paul@s... wrote:
>
> >> carl just posted this to the freelists tuning-math group:
> >
> >> http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/primality.pdf
> >
> >> the paper includes a very simple program that, it seems, is the
> >> fastest prime number test yet devised. if manuel and robert
(creators
> --------------------------------------
> >> of scala and fractal tune smithy, respectively) do primality
testing
> >> in their programs, they might want to revamp their
algorithms . . .
>
> Here's what the authors themselves have to say about that:
>
> > The new algorithm will have no immediate applications, however,
because
> > current methods used in computers are faster.
> >
> > "We have used more steps than the current methods in use,"
> >explains Agrawal.

whoops! i guess i was misled by the introduction to that paper. now
i'm *really* wondering why carl posted it . . .