the difference between mathematics and engineering

July 6th, 2007 at 12:20 pm

From SICP, footnote 47 in section 1.2:

In testing primality of very large numbers chosen at random, the chance of stumbling upon a value that fools the Fermat test is less than the chance that cosmic radiation will cause the computer to make an error in carrying out a “correct” algorithm. Considering an algorithm to be inadequate for the first reason but not for the second illustrates the difference between mathematics and engineering.

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