(Note that the Subject: line refers to a small portion of my reply, not to the original posting.) Ian L McLoughlin writes: >I have the idea that most people posting to the list are software programmers. >I am a humble chemist more into 2,4-Dihydroxybenzene or antivirals..(Acyclovir??) Hi, Ian: The first comment probably includes me. Regarding is the second - until a few years ago I was a humble Aerospace Engineer trying desperately to scrounge for scarce funding in my chosen specialty, theoretical & computational fluid mechanics. I would have been perfectly content to just stick with my legal pads and modest computer resources and do some basic work (the kind that doesn't need a million-dollar lab), but at most research-oriented engineering schools all they care about is how much grant money one brings in. Then, a little over three years ago, I noticed a little blurb about something called the "Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search" in Science Magazine, and now, a scant few years later, life is very different for me. My job propsects are less certain, but damn, I'm having fun. My research doesn't seem to have suffered, either - it's just a lot more interesting, and nobody cares about less money for capital building projects on my account. In other words, people who psot to and read this list come from all sorts of backgrounds, often ones which will surprise you. You are welcome here, even if you don't intend to prove the generalized Riemann hypothesis. >I must admit, I like Hilbert best of all... Yeah, that Scott Adams, he writes a mean comic strip...oh, that's with an H, you say? As in, Hilbert space...the final frontier. >Perhaps somebody can write a programme for pure integer based calculations.,??? As others have pointed out, these tend to be much slower than their floating-point brethren, but all-integer is still interesting from a theoretical (and perhaps someday soo, practical) perspective. Richard Crandall has an all- integer Nussbaumer convolution code for testing Fermat numbers which I think is available at his website (www.perfsci.com). Jason Papadopoulos has created a highly optimized version of same code for Pentium/Linux which may be of interest ([EMAIL PROTECTED]). The latter code was used for the bulk of the distributed all-integer verification of our (floating-point) proof of the character of the 24th Fermat number (official announcement to come soon). Best regards, Ernst _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
