Re: Mersenne: Re: GIMPS in the News
Jeramy Ross wrote: > > > On Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Russel Brooks wrote: > > > >http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?UID=35947505&SectionID=30&SubSectio > nID=90&ArticleID=23815 > > > > > >While I am the geek brother mentioned in the article I make no claim as > > >to the accuracy of the article. > > Then on Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Pierre Abbat wrote: > > What does "factor pi" mean? It means that Brooks the tormented is a doctor, not a mathemetician. Lighten up, why don't you. Articles like this give the bright and annoying plenty of opportunity to confuse their loving grandparents. I liked the article. It reminded me of my late grandmother, whose response to reading my article in The Perl Journal was, AIR, "It's wonderful. I don't understand a word of it." -- David Nicol 816.235.1187 [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Warning: may contain incomprehensible strings of random letters" _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: GIMPS in the News
Milton Brown wrote: > > This article seems to have its "facts" > all wrong. Its use of mersenne primes > makes no sense. The author should print > a revised article that is correct and reviewed. While I think that's a tad too much criticism directed at a non-technical, local newspaper, and I know newspapers very rarely print any more than a retraction of 3 or 4 lines in an inside corner somewhere, I do have to dispute a few things said in that article: "Nor has anybody developed an easy way to tell whether a number is prime: Youve got to try dividing it by every possible factor, which is a time-consuming pain in the patoot." I think it's marginally possible to prove M127 in that fashion, but not M521 or any higher Mersenne. "Its named after a 17th century French monk, Marin Mersenne, who noted that most numbers of the form (2N 1) are prime when N is aprime." No mention is made of the fact that Mersenne made several incorrect guesses, and he certainly did not state that most such numbers are prime (although all but one of the first eight are). [M#38 is] the biggest prime number known to humanity, and it would be very cool if the new biggest prime known to humanity would pop up in my computer. Plus, it would make me eligible for up to $250,000 in prizes! Is he even doing decamegatests? So I dont mind that my computer does stuff when Im not there, or every now and then calls http://www.mersenne.org and lets them know how Im doing. Wrong domain, and the program does not automatically call in when properly configured. Folks, rather than making blanket statements about the quality of an article written by someone who admits to having a limited understanding of science, would it not be better to point out the specific errors to the author of the article? That is what we should be discussing on this list, not simply saying that the article is bad, IMHO. Nathan _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: GIMPS in the News
On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Jeramy Ross wrote: [...] > On Sun, 08 Jan 2001, Francois Gouget wrote: > > Note that the above (and the article) is incorrect/misleading. > > First off, I appologize that I gave an incorrect refrence to digit > instead of bit. I apologize too. My intention was not to sound harsh or imply that you were trying to mislead people. I just wanted to try to straigthen this issue, which I almost managed to do ;-) : On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Herb Savage wrote: > .>So now we know the first few million decimal digits of Pi (and > thus > > about three times as many bits) > > Actually, that's over 200 billion digits on a super computer or over > 12 billion digits on a personal computer see: > > http://home.istar.ca/~lyster/supercomputer.html -- Francois Gouget [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://fgouget.free.fr/ The software said it requires Win95 or better, so I installed Linux. _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: GIMPS in the News
.>So now we know the first few million decimal digits of Pi (and thus > about three times as many bits) Actually, that's over 200 billion digits on a super computer or over 12 billion digits on a personal computer see: http://home.istar.ca/~lyster/supercomputer.html Regards, Herb Savage > and then a few isolated bits calculated > by PiHex: the five trillionth bit, the forty trillionth bit, and the > quadrillionth bit. >(went to their site after all) _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: GIMPS in the News
> On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Jeramy Ross wrote: > > > > > On Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Russel Brooks wrote: > > > > > >http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?UID=35947505&SectionID=30&SubSectio > > nID=90&ArticleID=23815 > > > > > > > >While I am the geek brother mentioned in the article I make no claim as > > > >to the accuracy of the article. > > > > Then on Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Pierre Abbat wrote: > > > What does "factor pi" mean? > > > > This is probably a reference to the PiHex project which computed Pi to > > the Quadrillionth digit (I think..). The project is finished but I believe On Sun, 08 Jan 2001, Francois Gouget wrote: > Note that the above (and the article) is incorrect/misleading. First off, I appologize that I gave an incorrect refrence to digit instead of bit. The intention was not to mislead anyone. It *simply* was intended as a reference to the other site so that the person who asked the original question could find a little more info about the project that was mentioned in the article. Secondly, I think that people are being just a bit harsh on the article and its author. Should the author had checked the facts a bit more closely? Sure. However, at the same time, we *should* be happy just to get a bit more exposure in the media. The large popularity of the SETI@Home project came not from accurate news articles, but from the fact that the news covered it at all. I remeber when I first heard about it in my local newspaper. None of the technical aspects mentioned by the local paper were right; however, just the mention got myself and quite a few others in my area interested in the project. I am glad that someone took the time and effort to write an article that might...just might... get us a couple of new searchers, and maybe even get a few more people interested in mathematics and computer science while their at it. That, *to me*, is far more important than nit-picking over the details in a local newspaper. Happy hunting, Jeramy NOTE: Low on coffee.. so no promise the above post is 'technicaly' acceptable ;-) _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: GIMPS in the News
This article seems to have its "facts" all wrong. Its use of mersenne primes makes no sense. The author should print a revised article that is correct and reviewed. Francois Gouget wrote: On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Jeramy Ross wrote: > > > On Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Russel Brooks wrote: > > > >http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?UID=35947505&SectionID=30&SubSectio > nID=90&ArticleID=23815 > > > > > >While I am the geek brother mentioned in the article I make no claim as > > >to the accuracy of the article. > > Then on Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Pierre Abbat wrote: > > What does "factor pi" mean? > > This is probably a reference to the PiHex project which computed Pi to > the Quadrillionth digit (I think..). The project is finished but I believe Note that the above (and the article) is incorrect/misleading. AFAIK the PiHex project did not compute Pi *to* the Quadrillionth digit. They computed *the* quadrillionth *bit* of Pi (using some standard probably fixed point representation I assume). I assume this is made clear on their site (which I have not read in recent times). So now we know the first few million decimal digits of Pi (and thus about three times as many bits) and then a few isolated bits calculated by PiHex: the five trillionth bit, the forty trillionth bit, and the quadrillionth bit. (went to their site after all) -- Francois Gouget [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://fgouget.free.fr/ Avoid the Gates of Hell - use Linux. _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Re: GIMPS in the News
On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, Jeramy Ross wrote: > > > On Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Russel Brooks wrote: > > > >http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?UID=35947505&SectionID=30&SubSectio > nID=90&ArticleID=23815 > > > > > >While I am the geek brother mentioned in the article I make no claim as > > >to the accuracy of the article. > > Then on Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Pierre Abbat wrote: > > What does "factor pi" mean? > > This is probably a reference to the PiHex project which computed Pi to > the Quadrillionth digit (I think..). The project is finished but I believe Note that the above (and the article) is incorrect/misleading. AFAIK the PiHex project did not compute Pi *to* the Quadrillionth digit. They computed *the* quadrillionth *bit* of Pi (using some standard probably fixed point representation I assume). I assume this is made clear on their site (which I have not read in recent times). So now we know the first few million decimal digits of Pi (and thus about three times as many bits) and then a few isolated bits calculated by PiHex: the five trillionth bit, the forty trillionth bit, and the quadrillionth bit. (went to their site after all) -- Francois Gouget [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://fgouget.free.fr/ Avoid the Gates of Hell - use Linux. _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Re: GIMPS in the News
> On Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Russel Brooks wrote: > >http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/Main.asp?UID=35947505&SectionID=30&SubSectio nID=90&ArticleID=23815 > > > >While I am the geek brother mentioned in the article I make no claim as > >to the accuracy of the article. Then on Sun, 07 Jan 2001, Pierre Abbat wrote: > What does "factor pi" mean? This is probably a reference to the PiHex project which computed Pi to the Quadrillionth digit (I think..). The project is finished but I believe the site is still up at: http://www.cecm.sfu.ca/projects/pihex/pihex.html If you want to see the results or find out more. Happy hunting, Jeramy _ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
