For better or for worse (I think for better - it should attract a few searchers) the new Mersenne report has made it to the popular technical/open-source/geek news site Slashdot.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/11/14/1849203&mode=nested Sadly, there are "a few" errors in this article, at first glance. I'm just posting quick comments in case any /. readers are checking this list. "There is an unconfirmed claim for Mersenne prime #39 of over 3,500,000 digits, for which a considerable amount of money has been awarded." (This prime has not received a large cash award, and any award for the finder is some time in the future, as can be seen on the prize distribution page <http://www.mersenne.org/prize.htm>) -"Mersenne primes are used to tell ET about us." (This links to an article which mentions using prime numbers to format "ascii art" types of messages, but never uses the term Mersenne prime, though a few of the smallest ones are mentioned, probably from coincidence.) -I can't evaulate the second "message to space" link, because I don't understand the image. There's no really obvious mention of a Mersenne exponent, though, at first glance. -"The Primenet list has confirmed that while they still need to totally test it out (which should be done by the 24th), they believe that the number found today is the 39th positive." (To my knowledge, only George has directly stated that he views the result to be correct. While I don't question his word, even if he is correct, the odds are in favor - but not *grossly* in favor - of the new prime being the 39th Mersenne - NOT the 39th prime, which is similiar to an error made in one of Cray's press releases IIRC) I couldn't care less about the grammer issues in the original article, but I must say it looks hastily typed (see <http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=23776&cid=2566173>) That said, I think this could get us a LOT of new searchers. It's kind of unfortunate that it was announced prematurely, but it could seriously help us. Nathan _________________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.ndatech.com/mersenne/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
