Thesis II: The amount of innovation in the theory and practice of factorization in the past century or so has been disappointingly small. The result is that a competent mathematician of the mid 19th century would perceive modern factorization methods as merely minor modifications to the methods known in his own day. Yet these "minor modifications" are themselves of considerable interest.
Modern research papers in this subject are remarkably difficult to read and understand. The amount of space and time spent on deriving detailed asymptotic estimates of space and running time interfere greatly with understanding the underlying methods.
I propose to discuss factorization methods, both old and new, and in a way that will be accessible to an audience that understands just a tiny amount of number theory.