1. What was the most difficult part of the reading for you?
Well, this was a pretty short reading (thanks, by the way) so it embarrasses me to say that I struggled to understand Theorem 3.2.5.2 (including Lemma 3.2.5.1 (together, these make up more than half of the section). I guess, for starters, what are [NZM] AND [P]? I'm guessing these are like... appendices? Other books? I really just don't know what in the world these are. But, to get points for this amazing blog, let me attempt to pinpoint where exactly I got lost. (also, I get lost on where the proof for the theorem and the proof for the lemma end....). Really, I'm confused about which proof goes with which theorem. Like, on the top of page 104 it begins a proof.... and it says "Proof (the sequence of primes is infinite)", so is that starting a proof of its own theorem? Is it proving something specifically mentioned/named above? And, I guess I got lost somewhere around the 10th line. I'm not sure how (maybe it's from something earlier that I'm forgetting) they made this leap about q^2+1 needing to be a power of two. I realize that's only the surface of my confusion, but hey, it's a start.
2. What was the most interesting part of the reading for you?
I thought that looking at this crazy fraction thing as being periodic in nature was kind of interesting. I mean, I was sad that it just lists a special case, rather than a proof (as far as I can see), but that it makes sense that if a_0,a_1,....a_n has some sort of periodic pattern that it could mean something (that I also don't understand.) I guess you can be excited that I'll be in class eager to learn what the heck is being taught here, because I am just not following the connections that they are trying to make. Shocker.
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