This is such a cool technique, and you could even teach it in secondary schools as a neat thing computer scientists can do with polynomials.
This is such a cool technique, and you could even teach it in secondary schools as a neat thing computer scientists can do with polynomials.
I am a secondary math teacher and I do exactly this with my students. When working on retrieving the expression of an affine function, I tell them about Shamir'..., they choose a secret pin as the slope, generate two points, give them to two other students who have to pair together to find the pin again. The students are always very engaged.
It's the same idea as how GPS works. Fun to see someone's eyes light up when they get why that third satellite is needed to fix a 2D position.
(Actual GPS is a little more complicated than that because the real system needs accurate time information.)