Mersenne Digest Thursday, April 1 1999 Volume 01 : Number 539
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 21:00:42 EST
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Mersenne: Re: Mersenne Digest V1 #538
<< There are actually no counterexample for p<1500, I've checked them all. >>
Interesting. Is this actually as nasty (computationally) as a LL test? Because
the exponentiation is to Mp/2... I can't think about this right now, I have to
go do other things in Real Life that aren't nearly as fun as prime numbers.
:-(
S.T.L.
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Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 22:39:29 -0500
From: Chris Nash <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: Re: Mersenne Digest V1 #538
Hi folks
><< There are actually no counterexample for p<1500, I've checked them all.
>>
>Interesting. Is this actually as nasty (computationally) as a LL test?
Because
>the exponentiation is to Mp/2...
Computationally its equally as tough - the exponentiation is done by
repeated squarings (so (Mp-1)/2 = M(p-1) is not as good as it looks), and
the iteration count (plus calculation complexity) is effectively identical.
It is possible that if the test fails proving compositeness the residue
could assist in factoring (but the same could probably be said of a LL test
residue with a little more work).
I quickly tested p<15593, no counterexamples. Quite an arbitrary place to
stop, but the chance of a larger counterexample is minute, to say the least.
Some figures by Pomerance et al suggest that if a random n-digit number is
strong pseudoprime to some random base, then it is composite with
probability less than 10^-(n/10) or thereabouts - sum that over all
Mersennes of prime exponent >=15593, and the expected number of
counterexamples is minute - it's less than a GP, first term 2^-1559.3,
common ratio 1/4. (assuming of course that the base 3 is 'random' enough in
relation to Mersenne numbers. The brave may wish to write 3=2+1 and use the
binomial theorem).
Ballpark estimate - the odds of a counterexample are about 10^500 to 1. The
result is "probably true", as much as any "strong probable prime" result is
probably true.
Chris Nash
Lexington KY
UNITED STATES
=======================================================
Co-discoverer of the 7th and 10th largest known primes.
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------------------------------
Date: Tue, 30 Mar 1999 23:10:17 -0800
From: "Milton Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: Fw: Program for Decimal to Binary Conversion
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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- ----- Original Message -----=20
From: Milton Brown=20
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]=20
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]=20
Sent: Tuesday, March 30, 1999 11:04 PM
Subject: Program for Decimal to Binary Conversion
Attached is a Pascal program that will convert
a decimal number of any length to binary, gives
its one's complement, and its two's complement.
M. Brown
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- ------=_NextPart_001_002D_01BE7B02.79BAF840
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charset="iso-8859-1"
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<HTML><HEAD>
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http-equiv=3DContent-Type>
<META content=3D"MSHTML 5.00.2014.210" name=3DGENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV style=3D"FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----=20
<DIV style=3D"BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A=20
href=3D"mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]" =
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Milton=20
Brown</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A href=3D"mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"=20
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Cc:</B> <A href=3D"mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"=20
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, March 30, 1999 11:04 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Program for Decimal to Binary =
Conversion</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>Attached is a Pascal program that will=20
convert</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>a decimal number of any length to =
binary,=20
gives</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2>its one's complement, and its two's=20
complement.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2> =20
=
M.=20
Brown</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=3DArial size=3D2> =20
=
<A=20
href=3D"mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]">[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A></FONT=
></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></BODY></HTML>
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- ------=_NextPart_000_002C_01BE7B02.79BAF840
Content-Type: application/octet-stream;
name="twonew.pas"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="twonew.pas"
PROGRAM two_div;
{ By Milton L. Brown 3-15-1999
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Example Output:
Enter decimal number here ; 4132
0001 0000 0010 0100
1110 1111 1101 1011
1110 1111 1101 1100
}
LABEL line1;
TYPE
iarray =3D array[1..1000] of integer;
MaxStg =3D string[250];
VAR st1, st2 : MaxStg;
r1, q1, twos : integer;
VAR a, b, len1 : integer;
i, j, k, out, carry, carry2 : integer;
a1, b1, c1, d1, e1 : iarray;
FUNCTION chardig( k : CHAR) : INTEGER;
BEGIN chardig :=3D ORD( k ) - 48 END;
PROCEDURE digit1( k : MaxStg; var a : iarray );
VAR i: INTEGER; BEGIN
FOR i:=3D 1 TO length(k) DO a[length(k)-i+1] :=3D chardig(k[i]) END;
PROCEDURE initial; BEGIN
carry :=3D 0; out :=3D 0;
FOR i:=3D 1 TO 1000 DO a1[i] :=3D 0;
FOR i:=3D 1 TO 1000 DO b1[i] :=3D 0;
FOR i:=3D 1 TO 1000 DO c1[i] :=3D 0;
FOR i:=3D 1 TO 1000 DO d1[i] :=3D 0;
END;
PROCEDURE REMAIN(a1: iarray; var r1 : integer; var b1 : iarray); BEGIN
r1 :=3D 0; j :=3D 1;
FOR i:=3D len1 DOWNTO 1 DO BEGIN
twos :=3D r1*10 + a1[i];
q1 :=3D trunc(twos/2);
b1[i] :=3D q1;
r1 :=3D twos - 2*q1;
END;
END;
FUNCTION ONES(a:INTEGER):INTEGER; BEGIN
IF a=3D1 THEN ones:=3D0;
IF a=3D0 THEN ones:=3D1; END;
PROCEDURE bit(VAR carry, in1, out, carry2 : INTEGER);
BEGIN
IF ((carry =3D 1) AND (in1 =3D 0)) THEN BEGIN out :=3D 1;
carry2 :=3D 0; END;
IF ((carry =3D 1) AND (in1 =3D 1)) THEN BEGIN out :=3D 0;
carry2 :=3D 1; END;
IF ((carry =3D 0) AND (in1 =3D 0)) THEN BEGIN out :=3D 0;
carry2 :=3D 0; END;
IF ((carry =3D 0) and (in1 =3D 1)) THEN BEGIN out :=3D 1;
carry2 :=3D 0; END;
END;
PROCEDURE convert(st1:MaxStg;VAR c1:iarray);
VAR carry1, carry2, in1, out : INTEGER; BEGIN
digit1(st1,a1);
len1 :=3D LENGTH(st1);
FOR k :=3D 1 TO (4*len1) DO BEGIN
remain(a1,r1,b1);
c1[k] :=3D r1; d1[k] :=3D ones(r1);
FOR i:=3D 1 TO len1 DO a1[i] :=3D b1[i];
END;
FOR i:=3D (4*len1) DOWNTO 1 DO BEGIN
IF (i MOD 4) =3D 0 THEN WRITE(' ');
WRITE(c1[i]);
END; WRITELN;
FOR i:=3D (4*len1) DOWNTO 1 DO BEGIN
IF (i MOD 4) =3D 0 THEN WRITE(' ');
WRITE(d1[i]);
END; WRITELN;
carry1 :=3D 1; in1 :=3D 1;
FOR i:=3D 1 TO (4*len1) DO BEGIN
in1 :=3D d1[i];
bit(carry1,in1,out,carry2);
carry1 :=3D carry2;
e1[i] :=3D out;
END;
FOR i:=3D (4*len1) DOWNTO 1 DO BEGIN
IF (i MOD 4) =3D 0 THEN write(' ');
WRITE(e1[i]);
END; WRITELN;
END;
BEGIN
line1: initial;
WRITE('Enter decimal number here : '); READLN(st1);
convert(st1,c1); WRITELN;
GOTO line1;
END.=1A
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Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 02:04:22 +1000
From: "Glen Steedman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [none]
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charset="iso-8859-1"
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<HTML>
<HEAD>
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HTML//EN">
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</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 face=3D"Times New Roman" =
size=3D2> commands (exactly=20
as shown) back to "<A=20
href=3D'mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]":'>[EMAIL PROTECTED]":</A></FONT>=
</DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=3D#000000 face=3D"Times New Roman" =
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Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 09:28:01 -0800 (PST)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Mersenne: OFF TOPIC: Ettiquette
Please excuse the intrusion...
Just a quick note about posting ettiquette. If you use MS Outlook or some
other e-mail program, please ensure that you are posting in plain vanilla
ASCII and not HTML. Not everyone uses an e-mail client that displays
e-mail in HTML. For me, it comes up as an attachment and it has to be
opened up in the appropriate viewer. This is fine, however it gets
cumbersome when it has to be done more and more often. Not everyone uses
Microsoft platforms.
Thank you
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
: WWW: http://www.silverlink.net/poke : Boycott Microsoft :
: E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] : http://www.vcnet.com/bms :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 14:28:24 -0500
From: "Jeff Gilchrist" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: EFF will give prize money for finding Primes
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/18863.html
Here is an interesting story of the latest distributed computing contest.
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is offering prizes up to $250,000
for finding huge prime numbers. The first prize is $50,000 for finding a
prime number larger than 1 million decimal digits, the highest prize is
$250,000 for finding a prime number larger than 1 billion decimal digits.
The actual EFF page that describes the contest is here:
http://www.eff.org/coop-awards/
- --
- -= Jeff Gilchrist =- E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 12:42:46 -0800
From: "Scott Kurowski" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: $50k Cooperative Computing Award Announcement
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, in cooperation with Entropia.com,
Inc. and the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, announces US
$50,000 for the first million digit prime.
- --- EFF Press Release ---
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 1999
EFF Offers Cooperative Computing Prizes
Netizens Encouraged to Enlist Idle Computers in the Name of Science
CONTACTS
Tara Lemmey, EFF Executive Director, +1 415 436 9333, x102,
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
John Gilmore, EFF Co-Founder and project leader, +1 415 221 6524,
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Landon Curt Noll, Cooperative Computing Awards advisor, +1 650 933
4168,
E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is
sponsoring
cooperative computing awards, with over half a million dollars in
prize
money, to encourage ordinary Internet users to contribute to solving
huge
scientific problems.
"We're providing incentives to stretch the computational capabilities
of
the Internet," said Tara Lemmey, EFF's Executive Director. "We hope
to
spur the technology of cooperative networking and encourage Internet
users
worldwide to join together in solving scientific problems involving
massive
computation. EFF is uniquely situated to sponsor these awards, since
part
of our mission is to encourage the harmonious integration of Internet
innovations into the whole of society," she added.
The prizes will be awarded for finding huge prime numbers, that is,
numbers
that can only be divided by 1 and themselves. The first million-digit
prime found will be worth $50,000; a ten-million-digit prime will
claim
$100,000; a hundred-million-digit prime garners $150,000; and the
finder of
the first billion-digit prime will receive $250,000. The largest
known
prime number, discovered by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
(GIMPS), has 909,526 digits.
"The EFF awards are about cooperation," said John Gilmore, EFF
co-founder
and project leader for the awards. "Prime numbers are important in
mathematics and encryption, but the real message is that many other
problems can be solved by similar methods."
Finding these prime numbers will be no simple task, given today's
computational power. It has taken mathematicians years to uncover and
confirm new largest known primes. However, the computer industry
produces
millions of new computers each year, which sit idle much of the time,
running screen savers or waiting for the user to do something. EFF is
encouraging people to pool their computing power over the Internet, to
work
together to share this massive resource. In the process, EFF hopes to
inspire experts to apply collaborative computing to large problems,
and
thereby foster new technologies and opportunities for everyone.
Prizes and cooperative projects to find prime numbers or demonstrate
weaknesses in encryption systems have existed for some years, although
they
have not yet found mass market appeal. "The approach that we're
taking
with prime numbers could be used for other scientific problems, such
as
analyzing the human genome, weather prediction, or searching for signs
of
life in space," said Gilmore.
"In the long run, we hope to move beyond prizes," he said, "catalyzing
a
market where ordinary people can sell the spare time on their
computers to
others who need to compute something overnight on thousands or
millions of
machines. This would reduce the net cost of owning a personal
computer,
and open new opportunities in animation, product design, economics,
cryptanalysis, science, and business."
According to Landon Curt Noll, chair of the award advisory panel and
discoverer of many large primes, the prizes are spaced so that winning
each
successive award would require over 100 times more effort. "While one
could wait for computers to get 100 times faster, it would be much
smarter
to attract 100 times the number of people to cooperate on the problem,
or
to invent a more efficient prime searching procedure. Both methods
offer
benefits to society."
"Given current technology, I would estimate that GIMPS could discover
a
million digit prime within a year," said Simon Cooper, a member of the
award advisory panel. "Discovering a ten million digit prime may take
several more years." One of the easiest ways for people to join the
effort
is via the GIMPS project (see http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm).
A prize claim must provide the date and time of discovery, and fully
disclose all hardware and software used. Each claim must be verified
by an
independent party knowledgeable in the field of computation, and must
be
published in a refereed academic journal.
Complete information about the EFF Cooperative Computing Awards is
available at the http://www.eff.org/coop-awards web page.
- --
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the leading civil
liberties
organizations devoted to preserving civil rights and promoting civil
responsibility on the Internet. We work to ensure that the Internet
remains a global vehicle for free speech, and that
the privacy and security of on-line communication is preserved.
Founded in
1990 as a nonprofit, public interest organization, EFF is based in San
Francisco, California. EFF maintains an extensive archive on civil
rights
and responsibilities, privacy, and free speech at http://www.eff.org.
- -- end --
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Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 09:05:00 GMT
From: "Brian J Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: EFF will give prize money for finding Primes
> The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is offering prizes up to $250,000
> for finding huge prime numbers.
No problem with that...
> The first prize is $50,000 for finding a
> prime number larger than 1 million decimal digits,
We ought to find one of these sooner or later. In fact I think we are
already "overdue". OK, we *don't* know the true distribution of
Mersenne primes with more than a million decimal digits (if indeed
there are any ... though this seems very likely, it isn't proved!)
> the highest prize is
> $250,000 for finding a prime number larger than 1 billion decimal digits.
Good luck to anyone who wants to chase after this!
LL testing of Mersenne numbers seems to offer the best chance of
success, however there are some other types of numbers (e.g.
Proth numbers) which can be tested almost as quickly (in
principle).
The trouble is that, since testing a 1 million digit Mersenne number
takes a few days on a system which is "fast" by current standards,
a 1 billion digit number is going to take A Long Long Time. Using
64-bit floating-point arithmetic the transform size is going to be
1000 times as large, i.e. 160M as opposed to 160K, and the
memory required will be huge, you will need gigabytes of RAM to
store the work vectors. Assuming that your 160M transform is as
efficient as the existing code, and that you can execute it without
page faulting all over the place, it will still take 1000 times as long
to compute each iteration, i.e. a couple of minutes per iteration on
a fastish Pentium II system. With about 3 billion iterations to
compute, that works out at approx. 6 billion minutes = 100 million
hours = 4 million days = 10,000 years to complete the test.
(Forgive me for using single digit precision ... I'm trying to make a
point rather than an exact computation)
The EFF's $250,000 would seem to be safe enough from Prime95!
To really attack the problem, you'd need a great many very fast
processors (possibly specialised hardware), and a variant of the
FFT enabling each iteration to be distributed across the processors
in a massively parallel manner. It probably isn't impossible to
construct such a system, but, on the other hand, at the moment it
would most likely cost a great deal more than $250,000, and would
still take a very long time to test M(~3 billion). It would probably be
cost-effective, instead of rushing into hardware now, to wait a few
years (with the money in the bank earning interest, instead of in
rapidly-self-obsoleting silicon) then buy much more powerful
hardware with the (bit more) money in your pocket, and still finish
the computation sooner.
I see the EFF "prize" as being an incentive for research groups
(probably noone else, except the Chudnovskys, if they don't count
as "professional researchers") could mount a realistic challenge at
the current time) to develop hardware, which would be applicable to
other tasks. There may be an "ulterior motive" - if that sort of
computing power was available to government agencies, messages
encrypted using strong techniques and 1024 bit keys would be
about as hard to read as plain text...
Regards
Brian Beesley
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Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 11:43:50 +0200
From: Alex Kruppa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: Distribution of factors among congruence classes
Hi all,
I wrote a little program to show the distribution of factors among
congruence classes, especially (mod 8) and (mod 120) (all others were
as uninteresting as you would expect). What surprised me was that the
distribution is not smooth at all, some congruence classes contain a
lot more factors than others. Is there a nice mathematical explanation
for this?
Maybe in the factoring code of Prime95, the sixteen congruence classes
(mod 120) should be arranged so that the luckier classes get tested first,
because if a factor is found, the following classes need to be
checked only up to that factor to find a smaller factor. Finding the factor
early will save a little time.
The factors were from lowM.txt, but only from prime exponent mersennes.
Ciao,
Alex.
P.S. I have no idea what the factor 55 (mod 120) is doing there. I'll add
something to my program to print out offending factors when I have time.
1 7
8 : 16517 21290
1 7 17 23 31 41 47 49 55 71
73 79 89 97 103 113 119
120 : 1675 2627 2340 3009 2015 1928 3034 1985 *1 2387
2049 2581 2227 1996 2674 2317 2962
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Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 16:49:55 +0200
From: Alex Kruppa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Distribution of factors among congruence classes
Alex Kruppa wrote:
> P.S. I have no idea what the factor 55 (mod 120) is doing there. I'll add
> something to my program to print out offending factors when I have time.
Now I know how the 55 (mod 120) got there, it's:
M( 310169 )C: 3486114749130405725455
and the problem is that that's not a factor. Not remotely.
3486114749130405725455 = 2*3*11*69720503*757595229073 +1
so doesn't seem to be a factor of another Mersenne we've tested,
either. Must have snuck in there by mistake, or maybe a typo.
Ciao,
Alex.
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Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 11:13:02 +0100
From: Brett Dunbar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: OFF TOPIC: Ettiquette
In article <Pine.BSI.3.95.990331091728.24649A-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes
>
>Please excuse the intrusion...
>
>Just a quick note about posting ettiquette. If you use MS Outlook or some
>other e-mail program, please ensure that you are posting in plain vanilla
>ASCII and not HTML. Not everyone uses an e-mail client that displays
>e-mail in HTML. For me, it comes up as an attachment and it has to be
>opened up in the appropriate viewer. This is fine, however it gets
>cumbersome when it has to be done more and more often. Not everyone uses
>Microsoft platforms.
The same applies to those sending e-mail in the windows-1252
character set (and any other character set that you might be using) that
is also non standard and not all programs can display it properly.
- --
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm
Brett Dunbar
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Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 22:37:45 +0200
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Mersenne: A dreadful Virus called Milessa!
Gosh!
I just read an artical about new virus called "Melissa". When a user
opens this email in his or her MS Outlook, the MS Visual Basic macro
virus automatically sends a copy of itself to the first 50 people in the
user's address book. The subject heading reads, "Very important message
from [user]", (user = the last person who unknowingly sent it.) It
spreads like fire, from anyone who was unintentionally sent this email,
opening this email will breed another 50 copies. I read it in England's
Telegraph newspaper (31 March, 1999). Summery: dont open any messages
with the "important message..." business in the heading. I just thought a
bunch of emailers like you guys might need this info. Let me know if you
find out anything about this virus.
- -oliver
___________________________________________________________________
You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail.
Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html
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Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 18:04:50 -0500
From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: IMPORTANT: BUG IN VERSION PRIME95 17
Hi all,
Please forgive me. I'm terribly sorry. I've discovered a bug
in version 17 of prime95 and its variants (ntprime, mprime, OS/2 version).
All Lucas-Lehmer tests above 4,194,304 (except those that were done as
a continuation of a v16 run) are no good. I feel sick.
I've uploaded version 18 of prime95 and ntprime. I'll port it
to Linux and Windows 3.1 as soon as I can. Please download and install
this new version immediately from http:\\www.mersenne.org\freesoft.htm
Version 16 and earlier users were not affected by this bug. Neither
were those users that are double-checking.
I've asked Scott to change Primenet to assign double-checking
work to version 17 clients in the future. I don't know if he can do this
or not, let's hope so.
After upgrading, you will get error messages that look like this:
Error reading intermediate file: p6180331
Renaming intermediate file q6180331 to p6180331.
Error reading intermediate file: p6180331
This is normal. Prime95 must discard the incorrect version 17
save files.
My records indicate that 10,794 of the 59,169 Lucas-Lehmer tests
above 4,194,304 will have to be discarded. This will set GIMPS back
roughly 3 to 4 months. This will not affect your standings on the PrimeNet
server's Top Producer's page.
For those that like to look at the bright side of things, I can find
only one bit of good news. This will give you a better chance to win the
$50,000 EFF prize once I sort out the mess and have the server hand out
smaller exponents to retest.
Once again, I'm sorry for the bug and the wasted CPU cycles the
last few months.
Humbled,
George
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Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 16:03:56 -0800
From: Tim Esau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Mersenne: IMPORTANT: BUG IN VERSION PRIME95 17
This seems frighteningly like an April Fools joke. Please confirm!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: George Woltman [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Thursday, April 01, 1999 3:05 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Mersenne: IMPORTANT: BUG IN VERSION PRIME95 17
>
> Hi all,
>
> Please forgive me. I'm terribly sorry. I've discovered a bug
> in version 17 of prime95 and its variants (ntprime, mprime, OS/2 version).
> All Lucas-Lehmer tests above 4,194,304 (except those that were done as
> a continuation of a v16 run) are no good. I feel sick.
>
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Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 19:05:47 -0500
From: Peter Doherty <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: IMPORTANT: BUG IN VERSION PRIME95 17
Please, oh please tell me this is some kind of cruel April Fools Joke.
It's not though is it? Oh well. Sorry.
- --Peter
At 18:04 04/01/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
> Please forgive me. I'm terribly sorry. I've discovered a bug
>in version 17 of prime95 and its variants (ntprime, mprime, OS/2 version).
>All Lucas-Lehmer tests above 4,194,304 (except those that were done as
>a continuation of a v16 run) are no good. I feel sick.
>
> I've uploaded version 18 of prime95 and ntprime. I'll port it
>to Linux and Windows 3.1 as soon as I can. Please download and install
>this new version immediately from http:\\www.mersenne.org\freesoft.htm
>Version 16 and earlier users were not affected by this bug. Neither
>were those users that are double-checking.
>
> I've asked Scott to change Primenet to assign double-checking
>work to version 17 clients in the future. I don't know if he can do this
>or not, let's hope so.
>
> After upgrading, you will get error messages that look like this:
>Error reading intermediate file: p6180331
>Renaming intermediate file q6180331 to p6180331.
>Error reading intermediate file: p6180331
> This is normal. Prime95 must discard the incorrect version 17
>save files.
>
> My records indicate that 10,794 of the 59,169 Lucas-Lehmer tests
>above 4,194,304 will have to be discarded. This will set GIMPS back
>roughly 3 to 4 months. This will not affect your standings on the PrimeNet
>server's Top Producer's page.
>
> For those that like to look at the bright side of things, I can find
>only one bit of good news. This will give you a better chance to win the
>$50,000 EFF prize once I sort out the mess and have the server hand out
>smaller exponents to retest.
>
> Once again, I'm sorry for the bug and the wasted CPU cycles the
>last few months.
>
>Humbled,
>George
>
>________________________________________________________________
>Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
>
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Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 18:08:12 -0600
From: brandon j whitehead <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: search engine
hi. about a month ago, someone mentioned a specific search engine...one
that would search for any file you were looking for. i wouldn't be
asking, but my hd crashed and i lost my saved mail. i would appreciate
it if someone would send my the link. regards, brandon
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 17:16:03 -0800
From: Will Edgington <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mersenne: Distribution of factors among congruence classes
Alex Kruppa wrote:
Now I know how the 55 (mod 120) got there, it's:
M( 310169 )C: 3486114749130405725455
and the problem is that that's not a factor. Not remotely.
3486114749130405725455 = 2*3*11*69720503*757595229073 +1
so doesn't seem to be a factor of another Mersenne we've tested,
either. Must have snuck in there by mistake, or maybe a typo.
You're using an old copy of my data; that particular false factor
took me several updates to eradicate for some reason, but it's
not in my data presently.
Will
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Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 20:20:32 -0500
From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: RE: IMPORTANT: BUG IN VERSION 17 PRIME95
Hi again,
At 04:03 PM 4/1/99 -0800, Tim Esau wrote:
>This seems frighteningly like an April Fools joke. Please confirm!
Alas, it is not an April Fools joke.
Sorry again,
George
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Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 21:02:12 -0500
From: George Woltman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Mersenne: RE: IMPORTANT: BUG IN VERSION 17 OF PRIME95
Hi all,
The fixed Linux version is ready. Please download and install
this new version immediately from http:\\www.mersenne.org\freesoft.htm
Regards,
George
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End of Mersenne Digest V1 #539
******************************
