Word: gustavus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...above 50 digits. They calculated that it would take the fastest computer, performing as many as a billion divisions a second, more than 100 million years to finish the task. Then, in the fall of 1982, a chance encounter closed the gap. During a scientific conference in Winnipeg, Canada, Gustavus Simmons, head of Sandia's applied-math department, was mulling the factoring problem over a few beers with another mathematician and an engineer from Cray Research, makers of the world's fastest computer. The engineer, Tony Warnock, pointed out that the internal workings of the Cray were especially...