ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Karatsuba algorithm

Karatsuba algorithm is an efficient way to multiply two numbers. To understand it, let's say we want to multiply two numbers together - 6 and 7. Normally, we would multiply 6 and 7 by writing out 6 times 7 which gives us 42.

The karatsuba algorithm takes a different approach. After separating the two numbers into two halves, we then multiplied the halves together and added them together to get the final answer. For example, if we separate 6 into 3 and 3, and 7 into 3 and 4, the karatsuba algorithm would do three multiplications, one for each pair of numbers. Then, we would add all the results together to get our answer of 42.