Arjen K. Lenstra

Arjen K. Lenstra works in computational number theory and cryptography. With Hendrik W. Lenstra and László Lovász, he authored the 1982 paper introducing the LLL algorithm and applying lattice reduction to factoring polynomials with rational number coefficients in polynomial time.^[ref]

A rational factorization can be converted to an integer-coefficient problem, then studied through modular information and short lattice vectors. Reduction helps recover an exact factor from that indirect arithmetic data. The achievement concerns polynomial factorization; it does not provide a polynomial-time algorithm for general integer factorization. His EPFL interview describes his introduction to randomized algorithms and his approach to teaching mathematical computation.^[ref]