![]() The problem has also become relevant in the context of modern cryptography, as some of today’s most widely used cryptosystems involve doing arithmetic with enormous primes. For hundreds of years, mathematicians have sought an efficient way to do so. It had roots in a broader question, one that the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss considered to be among the most important in mathematics: how to distinguish a prime number (a number that is divisible only by 1 and itself) from a composite number. For more than a year and a half, Larsen couldn’t stop thinking about a certain math problem. Still, Larsen’s most recent obsession felt different, “longer and more intense than most of his other projects,” she said. “He’s very persistent,” Lindenstrauss said. To date, he holds the record for youngest person to publish a crossword in The New York Times, at age 13. His first crossword puzzles were rejected by major newspapers, but he kept at it and ultimately broke in. “He gets focused on something, and it’s just bang, bang, bang, until he succeeds,” said Larsen’s mother, Ayelet Lindenstrauss. He twice qualified for the Scripps National Spelling Bee near Washington, D.C., after winning his regional competition. He had to layer the hobby on top of his other interests: chess, programming, piano, violin. When Daniel Larsen was in middle school, he started designing crossword puzzles. ![]()
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