How really does mining work?

[coolanton]

okay, call me a noob or something, but i've trying to understand the science behind this whole mining stuff these past days. From what I know, to mine for bitcoins you have to solve some math puzzle using your cpu or gpu or whatever and beat everyone else to it. This puzzle is so complex that one is solved approx. every 10 minutes. The person that solves it first wins 50 bitcoins okay? Well, what are actually these super complex puzzles you have to solve? Who gives out these puzzles? How does a computer check if it solved the puzzle?

Thank you for your answers and i apologize for my noobness (if that's a word) because I couldn't find an explanation anywhere.

[John (John K.)]

okay, call me a noob or something, but i've trying to understand the science behind this whole mining stuff these past days. From what I know, to mine for bitcoins you have to solve some math puzzle using your cpu or gpu or whatever and beat everyone else to it. This puzzle is so complex that one is solved approx. every 10 minutes. The person that solves it first wins 50 bitcoins okay? Well, what are actually these super complex puzzles you have to solve? Who gives out these puzzles? How does a computer check if it solved the puzzle?

Thank you for your answers and i apologize for my noobness (if that's a word) because I couldn't find an explanation anywhere.

Welcome to the Bitcoin forums!
Take a look here first: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=7269.0
Start here: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki

Finally, read this: http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf if you're concerned of the inner workings.

[Graet]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin
headings
Confirmations
Target
Difficulty
Transaction fees
Initial distribution
are probably most relevant to your questions, tho the whole page is worth a read

[ALOIS]

there are hundreds of articles about that, why are you asking, just google.
Google is your best friend, unless you are signed in!

[Ram]

google is your friend

[CoinDiner]

Hi

First off,   I dont think anyone could answer your question in one or two paragraphs (believe me I wish they could! )

read the links posted and then just lurk around reading topics that interest you and that you can make sence off.