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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!caip!segall
From: segall@caip.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Will the Karp Problem Be Solved?
Message-ID: <3988@caip.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Wed, 10-Dec-86 14:01:04 EST
Article-I.D.: caip.3988
Posted: Wed Dec 10 14:01:04 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 14-Dec-86 03:21:59 EST
References: <3302@curly.ucla-cs.UCLA.EDU> <144@linus.UUCP> <1306@loral.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 30



> >At the Crypto '86 conference I presented a new variation of the
> >Quadratic Sieve algorithm for factoring large integers. The variation
> >has been programmed on a STAR configuation of SUN-3's using ethernet
> >connections. 


>   Although this many be an interesting parallel algorithm, it is far
>   from meeting Karp's challenge.  The point of Karp's challenge is that
>   you must have a _general_ purpose parallel programming system - at least
>   general purpose in the domain of numeric computation.  The programs that
>   Dr. Karp proposes are much more complex than the program mentioned above.

Another point is that this doesn't even fit into the class of problems
which Karp has allowed. He only wants to consider solutions to
problems which are not "trivially parallelizable". Being trivially
parallelizable does not mean that a problem is trivial, but that there
is a way to execute a parallel solution to it which is no more
involved than simply using a bunch of processors independantly, or
almost independantly. Your solution seems to fit into that category. I
would think that any problem of useful size whose communication can be
handled without significant penalty by a single ethernet connecting
some Suns together has trivial communication requirements.


I agree with Ian that any system which meets this challenge will be
part of a large project, and will only incidentally be entered in the
contest. However, it also serves as a little bit of inspiration to
those of us who hope to eventually meet the challenge.