On 16 May 2001, at 19:52, Ken Kriesel wrote:
> At 10:56 AM 5/16/2001 -0000, "Brian J. Beesley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >Another point - we're coming up to the second anniversary of the
> >discovery of M38(?) - I think we're overdue to find another one!
>
> It would be nice to find another soon. But I don't think we're overdue.
I have an old print of the Mersenne Search Status Page - it's dated
11/11/99. The point at which the "one LL" and "status unknown"
columns are equal is at about 7.75 million. On today's copy of the
same page, the crossover is about 11.5 million. So the ratio is about
1.5.
>
> Long ago in Internet time I wrote:
>
[... big snip ...]
> to droop back to a lower discovery rate. On average there are less than
> 2 mersenne primes per exponent doubling:
> 36 / [ln(2976221)/ln(2)] = 1.67 mersenne primes per doubling of exponent,
> or about 37 / [ln(~3000000)/ln(2)] = 1.72 Mp's per doubling of p
giving a ratio of ~2^(1/1.7) = 1.5.
BTW I agree absolutely with the analysis in your message. The
interval between the discovery of M37 and M38(?) was shorter than the
interval which has elapsed since the discovery of M38(?), despite the
unusual (and in the long term unsustainable) increase in power in the
CPUs installed in new PC systems during this time.
Maybe M39(?) is not massively overdue, but I think it is at least
about due now. However, random distribution means we could be unlucky
& not find another prime for two more years, or possibly even
longer... A new discovery would give the project a shot in the arm,
though!
Regards
Brian Beesley
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