There are 4 primes p so that p1 is 2-smooth (3, 5, 17 and 257); There are 17

primes p so that p1 is 3-smooth (the above, and 7, 13, 97, 193, 769, 19, 37, 73,
577, 109, 433, 163, 487); There are 33 primes p so that p1 is 5-smooth (the
above, and also 11, 31, 41, 61, 101, 151, 181, 241, 251, 271, 401, 541, 601, 641,
751 and 811). So suppose we do the Pollard p1 algorithm with k = 5, and
suppose we just want to find prime divisors of N that are <1000. We can use B =
293654,the product of the highest powers of 2, 3, and 5 that are less than 1000.
Then for every prime p < 1000 so that p1 is 5-smooth, p1 will divide B. If any
of those 33 primes divides our number N, then for any base a, aB1andN will be
divisible by p. Thus just one computation checks to see if any of those 33 primes
<1000 are factors of N. One computation checks 20 percent of the primes <1000
all at once. Increasing the smoothness bound k will capture more primes. We find:
For 75 of the 167 odd primes p <1000, p1is 13-smooth, For 107 of the 167, p1
is 31-smooth. Thus if we are doing Pollard p1ona random six-digit number N and
we choose k = 31, then if N is divisible by any of the 107 primes p so that p1 is
31-smooth, then (aB1,N) > 1. On the other hand, the worst possible prime p <
1000 for the algorithm is 983. Since 9831=2491and 491is prime, 9831is not
k-smooth for any k < 491. The next example illustrates a phenomenonthat can
occur with the Pollard p1 algorithm: Example 7. Let N
=125561.Supposewecompute2Bq (mod N)forq=13,where B=B13
=2163105776114134 (B is divisible by all prime powers <N where each prime
is <13.) We find that 2B 1 (mod N) hence N =125561divides 2B1and (2B
1,N)=N. The algorithm appears to fail in this example because the greatest
common divisor of 2B13 1andN isN itself. Whenthishappens,it implies that the
orderof 2 divides B13 modulo every prime divisor of N. If
weweretocomputethegreatestcommondivisorwith k=7ratherthanwaiting until k =
13, then we would not have reached the point we did in the last example.
Example 8. For the same N, B7 =2163105776,and 2B 124839 (mod N).
Computing the greatest common divisor at this point yields
(2B1,N)=(124838,125561)=241,