Talk:Pollard's rho algorithm

The algorithm under "Richard Brent's Variant" appears to have some problems. One problem is that 'm' is used but doesn't seem to be initialized. Where does it come from?

"Richard Brent's Variant" algorithm question

In Brent's original paper he wrote k=k+m. This appears as k=k+i on the Wikipedia page. Which is correct?

Citing

Note: The book "Introduction to Algorithms" uses brent's variant, not the original method.

Core ideas

...two numbers x and y are congruent modulo p with probability 0.5 after 1.177 ${\sqrt {p}}$ numbers have been randomly chosen.

Is this really relevant? Since the algorithm picks pairs of numbers and only compares one pair at a time, how is the probability of finding one number in a pair congruent to the other affected by having previously chosen 1.177 ${\sqrt {p}}$ number (or more specifically 1.177 ${\sqrt {p}}$ /2 pairs)? I'm not sure but just curious. TVRS 22:06, 4 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]