Talk:Rational sieve
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The article says:
We'll arbitrarily try the value B=19, giving the factor base P={2,3,11,13,17,19}. (We cannot include 5 and 7 since they are actually factors of 35, which screws up the algorithm. Of course, if we already know the factors, we do not need to do the algorithm, but we will anyway to show that it works.)
I don't understand this. Does this mean that if we don't know the factors, and some of them are, inadvertently, in our factor base, the method fails? Why? And how useful could the method be if it often fails? —RadRafe 22:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
