94 - How RSA Turned Beautiful Math into Unbreakable Encryption

94 - How RSA Turned Beautiful Math into Unbreakable Encryption

From Round the Fire with Momo by Momo Tahmasbi

October 10, 2025 · 1h 25m

About this episode

Momo and mathematician Sohail discuss RSA cryptography, its revolutionary impact, and the underlying mathematics.

In this episode, Momo sits down with his friend and long-time flatmate, Sohail, a mathematician, for a relaxed conversation about RSA cryptography—how it works and why it was revolutionary. Sohail breaks down the math behind RSA with clear, accessible examples and shares bonus fun facts about mathematics, broken predictions, and the future of math in an open-source world.---Hardy writes: "The 'real' mathematics of the 'real' mathematicians, the mathematics of Fermat and Euler and Gauss and Abel and Riemann, is almost wholly 'useless'."A similar quote is attributed to Gauss, Sohail’s beloved mathematician. He jokingly said "I must have committed blasphemy by attributing it to someone else." Here’s the exact quote:"Mathematics is the queen of the sciences, and number theory is the queen of mathematics. She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but under all circumstances she is entitled to first rank."---00:58 – Sohail’s background in mathematics03:23 – Math and real-world applications08:11 – Asymmetric cryptography (like public-key cryptography) vs. symmetric cryptography (like the Caesar cipher)11:18 – Remembering Gauss and Gauss Junior15:55…

People in this episode

Host: Momo Tahmasbi

Guest: Sohail

Topics covered

  • RSA cryptography
  • mathematics
  • asymmetric cryptography
  • symmetric cryptography
  • real-world applications
  • number theory

Keywords

  • RSA
  • cryptography
  • asymmetric cryptography
  • symmetric cryptography
  • number theory
  • Fermat's Little Theorem
  • mathematics

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