Prime Factorization Program in Java

Question

I am working on a prime factorization program implemented in Java. The goal is to find the largest prime factor of 600851475143 (Project Euler problem 3). I think I have m

Answer 1

You need to do some research on algorithms for factorizing large numbers; this wikipedia page looks like a good place to start. In the first paragraph, it states:

When the numbers are very large, no efficient integer factorization algorithm is publicly known ...

but it does list a number of special and general purpose algorithms. You need to pick one that will work well enough to deal with 12 decimal digit numbers. These numbers are too large for the most naive approach to work, but small enough that (for example) an approach based on enumerating the prime numbers starting from 2 would work. (Hint - start with the Sieve of Erasthones)