Section 3.10, due Monday October 18

1. (Difficulty) I don't understand exactly what the theorems are used for. The theorems and the examples make sense, but I do not see the link to cryptography right away. How are the squares of x used in cryptography? Also, why in Jacobi Symbols, when we are working with composite numbers does n have to be odd?

2. (Reflective) I have not seen any of these things before in my classes. I understood the examples and the various steps that were taken. It is interesting that some problems that seem simple still to now have a quick algorithm to solve them. It was mentioned right at the end of the section that there is still no quick algorithm to solve the quadratic residuosity problem. I thought this section was interesting and enjoyed reading it because the propositions and examples were relatively easy to follow.