Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2009/ii/paper-2/4h/solution

The supplied congruence is a congruence of squares, since . Hence
A nontrivial square root modulo a product of two odd primes may agree with modulo one prime and modulo the other. Taking greatest common divisors separates these factors. The Euclidean algorithm gives
For example the successive remainders for the first computation are ; for the second they are . Therefore
Both numbers are prime by trial division by primes at most their square roots. More generally, given with , computing often produces a proper factor. The method requires no prior knowledge of which prime gives which sign, and is the basic factor-extraction step in congruence-of-squares algorithms.

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