Of course, we've got a classic chaotic feedback mechanism in place... if
the list is too quiet (posts per unit time is low), a thread will
spontaneously create itself to discuss the fact, immediately rendering the
list less quiet (increasing the post per unit time).
The normal traffic (e-mails not related to the lack of e-mails) could be
chaotic, but over the long haul is inexorably linked (I'd wager) to the
distributions of mersenne primes. That is, if you were to align the
graphs of mailing list traffic by time next to our progress towards
finding mersenne primes by time, you'd see huge influxes of traffic when
we found another prime (and probably when someone else finds one). That
sort of predictable dependance (fight about how predictable mersenne
primes are later) on an outside 'force' makes that sort of traffic
non-chaotic... right?
Alright, it's been a while... I haven't messed with Chaos theory since
those nice julia set posters were first starting to be pretty. But still;
it's something to ponder.
---Chip
On Fri, 19 Nov 1999, Spike Jones wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Why is the list so abnormally quiet? Is everyone vacationing?
>
> Ive been reading up on chaos theory to see if we can predict
> patterns in the number of postings. This looks like a classic
> application of choas theory. Is anyone here up to speed on
> that? I have four chat groups. The total number of posts
> I receive each day is far more predictable than the number
> of posts on GIMPS. Predictably. {8^D spike
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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>
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