Hardest math problem cracked by ND researcher
JUSTIN KRIVICKAS
Assistant News Editor
Christopher Monico, a post-doctoral researcher has solved arguably the hardest math problem in history.
The computation involved the most difficult elliptic curve discrete logarithm (ECDLP) ever solved and Monico had the help of 10,308 computers to acquire the right answer.
The Toronto security firm Certicom presented the math problem. Called the "ECCp-109 Challenge," the company encouraged researchers to test the security of ECDLP by offering a $10,000 prize for the solution.
To tackle this problem, Monico wrote a computer program to perform the complex calculations. Being a computer science minor as an undergraduate, he was familiar with computer programming and devised an application that could do the advanced calculations. It took Monico a few weeks to write the program and changes to it developed over a four month period.
Anyone with access to the Internet could visit Monico's Web site dedicated to the ECCp-109 problem and help him with the work. By downloading and running the program he developed, a user's idle computing power could be used by this program to help perform the mathematical operations and transmit this information back to Monico's server.
"This is the only feasible way to solve this problem," said Monico. Recently this type of approach has used the computers of hundreds of thousands of volunteers all over the world with the Internet to look for extra-terrestrial radio signals and to find more effective drugs to fight the AIDS virus. These projects are so large, and require so much computing power to solve, that they would be impossible for any one computer or person to solve in a reasonable amount of time.
Monico highlighted the complexity of the project by stating on his website, "We computed about 36,507,222,000,000,000 points total. If I tried this myself, I would have needed about 4,000 to 5,000 PCs working 24-7 on this project alone, for one year."
The only major problems that plagued Monico's efforts included power outages that shut down his server.
The solution took 549 days to compute and involved 247 teams from around the world.
By the time the project was completed, Monico had replied to over 1,500 e-mails concerning his work and computer program. The project's Web site can be accessed at http://www.nd.edu/~cmonico/eccp109/. It has been viewed more than 235,000 times since the project's inception.
Monico has already spearheaded the next effort to solve another complex problem by writing the code for the next endeavor. Others involved in Monico's first project are heading a new campaign that involves a somewhat simpler problem than the one they just solved.
Monico is currently completing post-doctoral research and is overseen by Joachim Rosenthal, a professor of mathematics and electrical engineering. He is currently applying for academic positions.
All News Stories for Thursday, November 7, 2002
