Re: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News
Well, I think the diffence of culture between the people of GIMPS and those of SETI@Home can be illustred simply by the comparaison of subject of discussion between this list and sci.astro.seti. This is the listing of recent subjects: SETI@home Online Newsletter 1 Cmd line ver 2.4 exe 2 problems width WINNT CLI 2.45 No more blinking icon2 Exobiology and the Fermi paradox. 32 BeOS client question 6 Command line 2.4 is "Doing basline smoothing." all 5 HAVE FUN 2 Fight Gasoline Prices 119 ANN: SETI Spy 2.3.1 available 9 WINNT CLI 2.4 upgrade from WINNT CLI 2.0 32 Clarification on "strongest gaussians" 3 Win NT CLI version 2.4 still gets wrong percentage 3 SETI Monitor is ZDNet's pick of the day!!! 9 MicroSoft Case 7 Ye Olde data? 3 Scientists discover two new planets circling stars 1 anybody know how to set up a ramdisk? 5 Mac s@h clients 10 Software Flaw - WHO DO I TELL 5 Problems with server 1 A quick tip... 1 Problems with returning result (error -20;2) 1 2 cts about WU processing time 1 Missing switches in CLI S@H clients 1 This newsgroupe may not represent teh majority of users. maybe, alt.sci.seti would do better. Yvan Dutil _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News
On 30 Mar 00, at 10:27, Stefan Struiker wrote: I will be more detailed later, once I collect and refine my thoughts, but at this point let me say that I think it is the group attracted to SETI, and the Area 51, uh, "enthusiasts," who need some work, not the MPrime interface. I tend to agree. However could I respectfully point out that those willing to trade a small percentage of CPU cycles for a pretty display could pretty easily build a "skin" to hide the Prime95 console window behind. Regards Brian Beesley _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Quick question
On 30 Mar 00, at 13:37, Nathan Russell wrote: What are the thresholds after which Prime95 does an additional bit of factoring? From the file common.h in the (publically available) source for v19: /* Factoring limits based on complex formulas given the speed of the */ /* factoring code vs. the speed of the Lucas-Lehmer code */ #define FAC72 7100L #define FAC71 5702L #define FAC70 4415L #define FAC69 3510L #define FAC68 2813L #define FAC67 2159L #define FAC66 1785L #define FAC65 1338L #define FAC64 825L #define FAC63 6515000L #define FAC62 516L #define FAC61 396L #define FAC60 295L #define FAC59 236L #define FAC58 193L #define FAC57 148L #define FAC56 100L The reason there is a bigger band than you'd expect for 64 bits (from 8.25 million to 13.38 million) is that there is a sharp efficiency drop when you go to 65 bits for reasons intimately bound with the word length of the CPU. Regards Brian Beesley _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News
From: Bryon Buck [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 00:01:53 1. To the average person, aliens are a lot "sexier" than prime numbers. Anyone can picture little green men from Mars, but it takes a special person to apprecite what a prime number is, and especially prime numbers of the magnitude we deal with. I do wonder whether /any/ people can really appreciate the size of numbers with the magnitude of the Mersenne primes. Running down the list of known ones: (? signifies that I'm not sure how to represent the number) M(2) presents no problem M(3) is about the limit of how high a typical person can count by sight, i.e. without actually thinking in order of the names of numbers. M(5) is in the range of the highest numbers we count to in day-to-day life. M(7) is the highest Mersenne prime to which an average person has counted in their life M(13) approaches the number of letters it is possible to print visibly on one piece of paper, and is the highest that a person could theoretically count to in one sitting. M(17) is the number of people that could fit into a /very/ large open arena or stadium. M(19) would take the better part of a month to count to. M(31) exceeds the population of China, and is impossible to count to in a person's lifetime. It is comparable to the number of heartbeats in a lifetime, and compares favorably with the number of stars in the galaxy, and is about a third of the world population. M(61) is a decent approximation for the number of living cells on this planet. It is a realistic upper limit on the amount of data that the world will ever store. M(89) ? M(107) ? M(127) is slightly less than the number of grams in the sun. M(521) is far greater than the number of particles in our universe. M(607)? M(1279) ? M(2203) is comparable to the number of text documents the length of this email. M(2281) ? M(3217) ? From here on I have no clue how to proceed. "The number of atoms in the universe to the power X" or "the number of possible N digit numbers" gives little impression of the size of the number. Regards, Nathan P.S. If anyone wants to take a shot at the others, I left the rest of the list of exponents in this email. 4253 9689 9941 11213 19937 21701 23209 44497 86243 110503 132049 216091 756839 859433 1257787 1398269 2976221 3021377 69725931 __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
RE: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News
I do wonder whether /any/ people can really appreciate the size of numbers with the magnitude of the Mersenne primes. Running down the list of known ones: (? signifies that I'm not sure how to represent the number) I don't recall the details, but one nice example I heard to demonstrate large probabilities was: Imagine you have a little bulldozer (atomic sized of course :) (assume hydrogen atoms since they be the smallest) This little bulldozer is tasked with moving a universe sized # of atoms from one side of a universe width to the other. It can only move one atomic width each year while pushing each atom, and then must move one atomic width each year on the way back to pick up the next one. The number of years it would take to move those atoms is, as you might guess, the really big number being conceptualized. Now...what I don't recall off the top of my head are (a) what's the estimate for the number of atoms in the universe, (b) about what is the estimated radius of the universe (if it's spherical at all, which, by big bang standards, it should approximate), and (c) what's the width of a hydrogen atom. Perhaps if I'm feeling up to it, I'll find which book I read this example in. It probably doesn't bear mentioning that I read this stuff in a book on the odds of abiogenesis occurring. :) So just ignore that aspect. Probably in Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" or Sproul's "Not a Chance" Aaron _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Factoring Depths
I'd just like to get a clarification on some files I downloaded from the Entropia FTP. Re the file of exponents, and how far they have been trial factored. I extracted a range using the decomp program. Each exponent has a number by the side, but I am unclear to what this number refers. Is it a) The bitlength of the K value alone i.e. a bit length of 32 would indicate all K values 1 to (2^32) have been tested ? or b) The bitlength of 2 x K x Exp + 1 as computed ? Just to save me repeating previously done work. Thanks Dave
Mersenne Digest V1 #713
Mersenne Digest Friday, March 31 2000 Volume 01 : Number 713 -- Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 01:28:21 -0500 From: Bruce A Metcalf [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News Sorry to be slow with this - I'm behind in my reading. GIMPS was mentioned favorably in an article in the 4 March 2000 issue of "Science News" under the title "Great Computations." It includes commentary on a variety of distributed computing projects, and in addition to GIMPS it mentions George's software, our recent prime discoveries, Scott's Entropia.com, and even some contrite advice from Aaron. The entire article is presently online at http://www.sciencenews.org/2304/bob1.asp. Thought you'all might be interested in the coverage. Bruce A. Metcalf mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://myweb.magicnet.net/bmetcalf _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers -- Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 01:05:06 -0700 From: "Aaron Blosser" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News Sorry to be slow with this - I'm behind in my reading. GIMPS was mentioned favorably in an article in the 4 March 2000 issue of "Science News" under the title "Great Computations." It includes commentary on a variety of distributed computing projects, and in addition to GIMPS it mentions George's software, our recent prime discoveries, Scott's Entropia.com, and even some contrite advice from Aaron. The entire article is presently online at http://www.sciencenews.org/2304/bob1.asp. Thought you'all might be interested in the coverage. I actually meant to forward this info on a long time ago. :) Ivars actually wrote me a while back and asked me if I had any comments I'd want to include, so that's where my statements come from. I just can't stress enough the importance of asking permission. At my current job, I manage the SMS stuff for our huge network. Out of curiousity, I ran a query to see if anyone had prime95.exe or ntprime.exe. Nope...none. Then I did a search for [EMAIL PROTECTED] and found a bunch... Sigh... I wonder what I'd find if I did a search for the distributed.net client executables? Hmm... But, this just goes to show that in any company of a certain size, you will have people who install their own software onto their PC's. Well, my case was just a matter of degree, but still, the principle is the same: if the machine isn't yours, ask permission first. Aaron PS - the article was incorrect in stating that I was arrested...I was never actually arrested. :) Just wanted to clarify that. :) _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers -- Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 20:29:22 +1200 From: "Halliday, Ian" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News This brings to mind a question I have been considering for a while: Why should it be that the seti@home project has collected such a large number of downloads while gimps has only around 10,000. Is it that the search for prime numbers is perceived to be the domain of geeks while everybody is supposed to be excited about extra-terrestrial life? Or is it because of the underlying perception that mathematics is hard and boring? I've invited some of my real-life friends and colleagues to join gimps, but without success. Some of these people had downloaded the seti client and run it for a while but didn't seem to be impressed by its performance or results. I'm much more excited about gimps, and believe that I am much more likely to find a certain Mersenne prime than evidence about extra-terrestrial life (which would still only be a speculation even so). Humour me and visit http://www.geocities.com/intellectualsuicide/ Regards, Ian - -- Aaron Blosser wrote: At my current job, I manage the SMS stuff for our huge network. Out of curiousity, I ran a query to see if anyone had prime95.exe or ntprime.exe. Nope...none. Then I did a search for [EMAIL PROTECTED] and found a bunch... _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers -- Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 05:13:51 -0800 (PST) From: James Escamilla [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Mersenne: GIMPS in Science News The main reason Ive heard for people liking the Seti project is because the screen saver looks pretty. - --- "Halliday, Ian" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This brings to mind a question I have been considering for a while: Why should it be that the seti@home project has collected such a
