decomposing a value into it's original components

[ilik]

i'm trying to decompose a value; which originated from two components:

let's say i have two components, a number 5 and a number 21. and i have a single box (a variable) in which i put both. my only option is to
sum them up and put that result (26) into a box. now 10 years have passed and i don't remember what is in the box,
i want to open the box and take my original two components out. i will get that 26 out but how do i extract my previous values a 5 and a 21???
maybe there is some way to put a mathematical marker on value 5. so that when i open the box and grab value 26, i would
multiply it on that marker and get 5 as a result. but again.. i do not have a room in that box to keep "26" and the marker value separately. there is only one room for single value i'm cornered. please consider, that these two component values may be any value from 1 to 50 for example instead of 5 and 21, could be 19 and 47; or 33 and 36... and if it will ease the job it is worth to mention that the first component is always less than the second component. if however there would be some unique marker value or a unique formula which would apply to any possible component and solve the task, i would keep it in one static place and reuse it repeatedly any ideas to do something like that?

 

[Ishuda]

i'm trying to decompose a value; which originated from two components:

let's say i have two components, a number 5 and a number 21. and i have a single box (a variable) in which i put both. my only option is to
sum them up and put that result (26) into a box. now 10 years have passed and i don't remember what is in the box,
i want to open the box and take my original two components out. i will get that 26 out but how do i extract my previous values a 5 and a 21???
maybe there is some way to put a mathematical marker on value 5. so that when i open the box and grab value 26, i would
multiply it on that marker and get 5 as a result. but again.. i do not have a room in that box to keep "26" and the marker value separately. there is only one room for single value i'm cornered. please consider, that these two component values may be any value from 1 to 50 for example instead of 5 and 21, could be 19 and 47; or 33 and 36... and if it will ease the job it is worth to mention that the first component is always less than the second component. if however there would be some unique marker value or a unique formula which would apply to any possible component and solve the task, i would keep it in one static place and reuse it repeatedly any ideas to do something like that?

How large a number can you keep? Could you keep the number 521 [5 and 21] in the box or 1947 [19 and 47] or 3336 [33 and 36], ...

If, in reality, the only thing you could store was their sum then there would be no way to get the precise numbers back. However, depending on just what size numbers you could store, you could get the precise numbers. After all this complete post could be written as just one large unique number.