Brent's variation of a factorization algorithm

[Irmen de Jong]

On 12/10/09 12:52 AM, n00m wrote:
> On Dec 10, 1:11 am, Irmen de Jong<ir... at -nospam-xs4all.nl>  wrote:
>> 999999999
>> == 27 * 37037037
>>
>> What gives? Isn't this thing supposed to factor numbers into the product
>> of two primes?
>>
>> -irmen
>
> Only if you yield to it a SEMIprime =)

A 'semiprime' being a product of 2 prime numbers, I suppose.

>> 27 * 37037037
> Now you can apply brent() to these numbers, and so on

Right :)   I more or less expected it to do that by itself (didn't look 
at the algorithm)

But you wrote that it might run indefinately if you feed it a prime 
number. There's no safeguard then against getting into an endless loop 
if you keep applying brent() to the factors it produces? Because in the 
end one or both factors will be prime...

-irmen