This is a mathematical problem, and eCourier spent some time hunting around for someone able to solve it.
As a non-mathematician, he appreciates the difficulty of explaining a recondite mathematical problem to a general audience, and gives a vivid account both of the passion that mathematicians have for their subject and of the fascination for this particular problem.
Mining involves solving a hard mathematical problem and miners typically use large numbers of computers to speed up the number-crunching involved.
Fifty bitcoins are released when that block is done and the work, which involves solving a hard mathematical problem, is completed.
Mining involves solving a hard mathematical problem and miners typically use large numbers of computers to speed up the number crunching involved.
People generate or "mine" Bitcoins by participating in that network - for instance, by solving a complicated mathematical problem using their computer.
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Bitcoins are created, or mined, when computers complete a complicated mathematical problem.
Instead users are rewarded in a process called "mining", in which coins are issued to a user when they solve a complicated mathematical problem using their computer.
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Instead they are created in a process called "mining", in which coins are issued to a user when they solve a complicated mathematical problem using their computer.
Two weeks ago a team led by Isaac Chuang at IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people) disclosed that it had built a 5-qubit quantum computer and used it to solve a relatively simple mathematical problem.
Instead bitcoins are "mined" by people getting their computer to perform a complicated and time-consuming mathematical problem.
Some readers may find the mathematical chapters heavy going, but Mr Derbyshire makes a valiant attempt at explaining the mathematical ideas around the problem.
The field of DNA computing was kicked off in 1994 when Leonard Adleman used strands of DNA to solve a simple example of a mathematical conundrum known as the Travelling Salesman Problem.
"What the 1992 semi-final did was highlight the fact that a logical and mathematical approach was needed to solve the problem, " said Duckworth, currently with the Royal Society of Statisticians.
But, to judge from Mr Sabbagh's book, most mathematicians would incline more towards Hilbert's view that a solution will one day be found for even the most difficult mathematical problem.
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