Wikipedia article on SNFS

[fivemack]

I've tried to tidy this up a bit (the original version suggested that SNFS polynomials could be found for arbitrary numbers, which I felt needed correcting), but it still reads as if it's been written by someone profoundly ignorant of the SNFS; can I convince one of the gurus here to have a look and tell me what I've missed out?

I suppose the right answer is to have a single entry for 'number field sieve', and the SNFS article to concentrate on listing classes of number which have SNFS polynomials for non-obvious reasons, but I don't know how to convince wikipedia to do that sort of refactoring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_number_field_sieve

[R.D. Silverman]

Originally Posted by fivemack

I've tried to tidy this up a bit (the original version suggested that SNFS polynomials could be found for arbitrary numbers, which I felt needed correcting), but it still reads as if it's been written by someone profoundly ignorant of the SNFS; can I convince one of the gurus here to have a look and tell me what I've missed out?

I suppose the right answer is to have a single entry for 'number field sieve', and the SNFS article to concentrate on listing classes of number which have SNFS polynomials for non-obvious reasons, but I don't know how to convince wikipedia to do that sort of refactoring.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_number_field_sieve

I made a few small changes.

SNFS applies to *any* numbers that can be represented as a polynomial
with small coefficients. It need not be limited to just the forms listed
in the article. However, trying to list all possibilties seems too daunting a
task.

[FactorEyes]

Even with its flaws, which I'm not qualified to correct, that's one of Wikipedia's better articles. The link to the article on the rational sieve is the best close-to-layman-level illustration of what is really going on with NFS.