Ossifrage Quotes (1 quote)
The magic words are squeamish ossifrage.
With co-authors A. Shamir, and L. Adleman. This sentence is the decoded result from factoring a 129-digit composite number known as RSA-129. (RSA is formed from the initials of the authors’ last names.) The task required some 600 persons using 1,600 computers, linked by the Internet, that worked on the factoring for eight months. The coded message appeared in Martin Gardner, 'Mathematical Games: A New Kind of Cypher That Would Take Millions of Years to Break',Scientific American (Aug 1977), No. 237, 120-124. See Brian Hayes, American Scientist (Jul-Aug 1994), 82, No. 4, 312-316.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
