[math-fun] An interesting semiprime?

27 Feb 2005

      Mathfun'ers, Ed Pegg:

Long ago, Ed Pegg sought an "interesting semiprime". I pestered him
briefly, to explain what he meant by "interesting". He never explained
it, but all the while, I believed that I knew what he meant:

    An Interesting SemiPrime (ISP) is a number which
    - is the product of two primes;
    - one has a concise proof that it's the product of two primes; and
    - there is scant hope of finding a proper factor.
    (Never mind, that "concise" is subjective and "scant hope" is
     temporary.)

I think I found such an ISP; see http://www.graysage.com/djr/isp.txt
for the rest of this message.

-- 
Don Reble  djr@nk.ca