16.1, due on November 26

The Interesting

I was excited to finally read this section because we have read in so many of the other sections that one day we would learn about elliptic curves in cryptography. I haven't seen eliptic curves in a long time, so this was a nice exposure.

The Challenging

I tried to understand why p+infinity = p, but I don't really know if I'm convinced that I understand why. Is it because they call the top of the y axis infinity, so it just jumps down to the bottom? I didn't think that I was understanding the example on page 350 (why were they adding things to each other in the first place, why were they substituting it into the Elipse equation, why were they solving for a third point, etc.) But then on page 352 when it gave the simple procedure, I at least think I understand what they were trying to show, but I wouldn't say that I understand why it works.