mining is solving mathimatical problems or is it

[kickingcoin]

I try my best to enlighten people to BITCOIN and crypto currencies in general and do my best to explain how it works, but quite often i get the same question asked back which i really cannot answer, im not from a computing background, dont know how to program or anything like that.
Now i know that these supercomputers are making peta flops of calculations per second or something amazing like that - but they have been given a specific task or query to find the answer to right? well i do know that a super computer can never mine for coins as the style of computing just doesnt work in that manner, But if they super computers are performing extremely difficult tasks then what the hell is actually being done when miners mine for bitcoin ect... could it not have a little suspicion surround it? can this not fall into a category for conspiricy theory realms as in something is being hidden from us? could satoshi being as smart as that not have an unknown alternative goal behind mining???

[greyman]

kickingcoin,
The mining computations are not computing anything useful beyond the bitcoin network, but they are necessary for the whole thing to work. As you know, bitcoin network is a so-called peer-to-peer network, where there are a lot of nodes, which can freely join or leave the network at any time, and no one is more authoritative than others.

Without those computationally difficult calculations, it would be technically possible that some "dishonest" node will join the network, running with the modified version of the bitcoin software, trying to generate some "fake" transaction, which would for example steal money from other address, etc. The mining prevents this from happening, because the dishonest node can't simulate the proof, that mining work was being done, so the other nodes knows that that transaction is fake and should be ignored.

You can read more about it here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work

[Jacce]

Although some alt coins uses the computers for more useful stuff. For example, Primecoin uses their miners to find prime numbers or something like that.

[hieroglyph]

kickingcoin,
The mining computations are not computing anything useful beyond the bitcoin network, but they are necessary for the whole thing to work. As you know, bitcoin network is a so-called peer-to-peer network, where there are a lot of nodes, which can freely join or leave the network at any time, and no one is more authoritative than others.

Without those computationally difficult calculations, it would be technically possible that some "dishonest" node will join the network, running with the modified version of the bitcoin software, trying to generate some "fake" transaction, which would for example steal money from other address, etc. The mining prevents this from happening, because the dishonest node can't simulate the proof, that mining work was being done, so the other nodes knows that that transaction is fake and should be ignored.

You can read more about it here:
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work

That makes sense, now I get a better grasp of how it works.  Good question and good talk, I'm glad we did this. 

[nate008]

There is no alternate goal  behind those computations , mining is done just to protect the network and make bitcoin transactions possible and safe.
Of course , it could have been designed to find or calculate something like Primecoin does , but Satoshi didn't chose that approach.

[torrentheaven]

Of course , it could have been designed to find or calculate something like Primecoin does , but Satoshi didn't chose that approach.

Satoschi choose the most secure approach, SHA256 hash is very well studied for possible vulnerableness (without success)