RE: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-21 Thread Brian J. Beesley

On 19 Jul 99, at 18:40, Todd Sauke wrote:

> Alex,
> 
> The group you seek always has 2^n elements.  All bit combinations are
> possible.
> (P = 2^p-1 is "minus one" in n-bit words.  2*P is minus two, etc. up to
> 2^n*P which is 0.  All bit patterns occur.)
> 
> Todd Sauke

In general, what you say is true - but try computing the LL sequence 
to one hexit precision (i.e. working to base 16). Starting from 4, we 
get 0x0E, then 2 ; since 2*2-2 = 2, _all_ the subsequent values are 
2, so we can compute the low order 4 bits of the umpteen zillionth 
term of the LL sequence as fast as we can load the value 2 into a 
register!

Oops - doesn't work - forgot to take the modulus - otherwise there 
could be _no_ Mersenne primes except 7 = 2^3-1 ;-)

It's taking the modulus which is the key to the whole LL test, and 
what the problem essentially boils down to is _any_ way of computing 
the remainder of a division whilst working to a lower precision than 
the number of bits in the divisor.

Now I wouldn't say that this is completely impossible, but the very 
idea seems about as counter-intuitive as the notion of having several 
networked processors cooperating on an FFT without being able to 
share data at memory bus speed and without being significantly 
delayed by waiting for each other's intermediate results to become 
available.

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: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-19 Thread Todd Sauke

Alex,

The group you seek always has 2^n elements.  All bit combinations are
possible.
(P = 2^p-1 is "minus one" in n-bit words.  2*P is minus two, etc. up to
2^n*P which is 0.  All bit patterns occur.)

Todd Sauke


>Now, I'm going to toss out an idea.  I thought about this a few minutes
>after reading the previous message and I want to see if you all think its
>worthwhile or not, or whether its even correct or not.
>Here goes:
>1) If we know the last n bits of a number x, then we can (easily) determine
>the last n bits of x^2.
>2) If we know the last n bits of x^2 we can easily determine the last n bits
>of x^2 - 2.
>3) It follows by repeating this (I hope) that we can (realatively easily)
>determine the last n bits of the last number in the Lucas-Lehmer series.
>Now the slightly sketchy part (provided that was all right) . . .
>4) There are fewer than, or equal to, 2^n possible combinations of n
>terminating bits when we examine the multiples of P = 2^p - 1, i.e. the
>group {n_terminating_bits(P), n_terminating_bits(2P),
>n_terminating_bits(3P), . . . }.  It is my hope that this group has fewer
>(ideally significantly fewer) than 2^n elements.  That way if the last n
>bits of the last term of the Lucas-Lehmer test is a combination of bits
>which could not possibly be the final n bits of a product of P, then we know
>that the residue cannot be 0.
>Layman's example:
>any number that ends in ...34587 cannot be divisible by 25.  Why? (apart
>from the obvious).  Because any number that's a multiple of 25 ends in (now
>I'm looking at the group {25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150 . . .}), 00, 25, 50, or
>75.  ...34587 doesn't end with any of these.
>
>I hope I've explained myself enough that you can either take from this any
>worth which it might have, or correct the mistakes I've made.  :)
>
>Alex Healy
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>http://www.alexhealy.net
>
>
>>*)  Somebody finds a way to verify the output of the LL test
>>without a complete rerun (cf. verification of digital
>signatures).
>>If this eliminates the need for double-checks, does it qualify?
>
>That sounds interesting! Of course, if we could find a _quick_ way of
>computing a few bits of the residual, we could use this as a filter
>which would remove a large proportion of the contenders - never mind
>about being a quick check on a result. I think this really _should_
>qualify for an award!
>
>Regards
>Brian Beesley
>
>
>
>_
>Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
>Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



RE: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-19 Thread Alex Healy

Thanks.  I was also considering a base other than base 2.  But I'm afraid
the same problem arises as long as the base is realatively prime to the
Mersenne number we are considering.  For example if you look at 2047 (i.e.
2^11 - 1) in base 23 or base 87 you'll see the algorithm I outline below
actually works, but that that's sort of ad hoc because I know that 23 and 87
are factors. :)  Unless someone else has some particularly brilliant
insight, I admit this method is no better than factoring (since we'd need a
base (radix), b such that (b, 2^p - 1) != 1.

Thanks for the feedback,
Alex


Alex,

The group you seek always has 2^n elements.  All bit combinations are
possible.
(P = 2^p-1 is "minus one" in n-bit words.  2*P is minus two, etc. up to
2^n*P which is 0.  All bit patterns occur.)

Todd Sauke


>Now, I'm going to toss out an idea.  I thought about this a few minutes
>after reading the previous message and I want to see if you all think its
>worthwhile or not, or whether its even correct or not.
>Here goes:
>1) If we know the last n bits of a number x, then we can (easily) determine
>the last n bits of x^2.
>2) If we know the last n bits of x^2 we can easily determine the last n
bits
>of x^2 - 2.
>3) It follows by repeating this (I hope) that we can (realatively easily)
>determine the last n bits of the last number in the Lucas-Lehmer series.
>Now the slightly sketchy part (provided that was all right) . . .
>4) There are fewer than, or equal to, 2^n possible combinations of n
>terminating bits when we examine the multiples of P = 2^p - 1, i.e. the
>group {n_terminating_bits(P), n_terminating_bits(2P),
>n_terminating_bits(3P), . . . }.  It is my hope that this group has fewer
>(ideally significantly fewer) than 2^n elements.  That way if the last n
>bits of the last term of the Lucas-Lehmer test is a combination of bits
>which could not possibly be the final n bits of a product of P, then we
know
>that the residue cannot be 0.
>Layman's example:
>any number that ends in ...34587 cannot be divisible by 25.  Why? (apart
>from the obvious).  Because any number that's a multiple of 25 ends in (now
>I'm looking at the group {25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150 . . .}), 00, 25, 50, or
>75.  ...34587 doesn't end with any of these.
>
>I hope I've explained myself enough that you can either take from this any
>worth which it might have, or correct the mistakes I've made.  :)
>
>Alex Healy
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>http://www.alexhealy.net
>
>
>>*)  Somebody finds a way to verify the output of the LL test
>>without a complete rerun (cf. verification of digital
>signatures).
>>If this eliminates the need for double-checks, does it
qualify?
>
>That sounds interesting! Of course, if we could find a _quick_ way of
>computing a few bits of the residual, we could use this as a filter
>which would remove a large proportion of the contenders - never mind
>about being a quick check on a result. I think this really _should_
>qualify for an award!
>
>Regards
>Brian Beesley
>
>
>
>_
>Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
>Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



RE: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-19 Thread Alex Healy

Now, I'm going to toss out an idea.  I thought about this a few minutes
after reading the previous message and I want to see if you all think its
worthwhile or not, or whether its even correct or not.
Here goes:
1) If we know the last n bits of a number x, then we can (easily) determine
the last n bits of x^2.
2) If we know the last n bits of x^2 we can easily determine the last n bits
of x^2 - 2.
3) It follows by repeating this (I hope) that we can (realatively easily)
determine the last n bits of the last number in the Lucas-Lehmer series.
Now the slightly sketchy part (provided that was all right) . . .
4) There are fewer than, or equal to, 2^n possible combinations of n
terminating bits when we examine the multiples of P = 2^p - 1, i.e. the
group {n_terminating_bits(P), n_terminating_bits(2P),
n_terminating_bits(3P), . . . }.  It is my hope that this group has fewer
(ideally significantly fewer) than 2^n elements.  That way if the last n
bits of the last term of the Lucas-Lehmer test is a combination of bits
which could not possibly be the final n bits of a product of P, then we know
that the residue cannot be 0.
Layman's example:
any number that ends in ...34587 cannot be divisible by 25.  Why? (apart
from the obvious).  Because any number that's a multiple of 25 ends in (now
I'm looking at the group {25, 50, 75, 100, 125, 150 . . .}), 00, 25, 50, or
75.  ...34587 doesn't end with any of these.

I hope I've explained myself enough that you can either take from this any
worth which it might have, or correct the mistakes I've made.  :)

Alex Healy
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.alexhealy.net


>*)  Somebody finds a way to verify the output of the LL test
>without a complete rerun (cf. verification of digital
signatures).
>If this eliminates the need for double-checks, does it qualify?

That sounds interesting! Of course, if we could find a _quick_ way of
computing a few bits of the residual, we could use this as a filter
which would remove a large proportion of the contenders - never mind
about being a quick check on a result. I think this really _should_
qualify for an award!

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: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-19 Thread Brian J. Beesley

On 19 Jul 99, at 3:57, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>*)  Somebody finds how to parallelize the FFT using little
>communication.  The wall-clock time might be reduced 10-fold,
>but the CPU time increased 16-fold.  This could be
>great for verifying a new Mersenne prime, but
>does it qualify for the money?

Surely that's been done - long since - for application on massively 
parallel processors (vector machines).
> 
>*)  Somebody finds a novel way to choose elliptic
>curves modulo Mp, using the information that
>its prime factors are == 1 (mod p) and that 2, -p
>are quadratic residues modulo any factor of Mp.
>This lets the trial division phase search 10 bits higher, 
>such as searching to 2^74 rather than 2^64.  
>Does its finder get any money?

I think this would speed us up only a few percent at best. 
Nevertheless it's a novel approach & could have other useful 
ramifications.

I mentioned to George that I think the best way to decide which 
improvements are eligible for any share of an award would be to have 
a vote with the electorate consisting of previous Mersenne prime 
discoverers.

>*)  Somebody finds a way to verify the output of the LL test
>without a complete rerun (cf. verification of digital signatures).
>If this eliminates the need for double-checks, does it qualify?

That sounds interesting! Of course, if we could find a _quick_ way of 
computing a few bits of the residual, we could use this as a filter 
which would remove a large proportion of the contenders - never mind 
about being a quick check on a result. I think this really _should_ 
qualify for an award!


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: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-18 Thread Lucas Wiman

> I hate the charity idea only because it seems to me that a "Mersenne
> Scholarship Fund" would do much more for our project in many ways:
>
> 1. We could control where the money goes to a greater extent.
> 2. It would allow us to contribute a great deal more mathematics in
> general.
> 3. More notariety.

I doubt that we could actually get many scholarships out of the $100,000.
Maybe scholarships for 6 or 7 people, any more and we start sending them to
community colleges.

(though, if you want to send someone to college, I wouldn't mind it ;)   

I like the idea of using some of it to get George some computers, and
maybe pay his electric bill for a year :)

Ok, that's maybe 10K at the outside, then we run the risk of just cluttering
his house with computers.  

I also like the idea of giving some of it to Scott. And though I think that 
Colin Percival is right when he says that Scott gets most of the reward
from the publicity, he would get this anyway.  Especially if newpaper
articles read $15,000 was given to Scott Kurkowski, who gives his 
server time to run the primenet software...

Different message, same author:
> 10% for George
> 10% for Scott
> 10% for Discoverer
> 10% Charity/Scholarship (The Mersenne Scholarship Fund)
> 60% divided evenly to everyone who contributed, based on CPU cycles
> contributed after the last Mersenne prime found.

~6,000 people in gimps.  $60,000/6,000=$10 on average.  Hardly worth doing...

Though personally, I'm not to comfortable with the idea of splitting the money
away from the winner.  I doubt that the winner would actually do anything to
deserve the money, but I also think that many, many people would be discouraged
to read "if you are the lucky discoverer, you don't get to keep 90 grand that
the EFF would give to you were it not for the software you are about to 
download."  This would also entail a restrictive license agreement, which 
some lawyer would write, and we all know that a "volunteer project's" 
credibility goes straight down the tubes when lawyers get involved.

Hey, if you don't believe it, try reading your bank statment, and your 
credit card bill's fine print.  Then tell me how much respect we would 
lose in the name of legality.

I think the only reasonable way to get any money out of the hands of 
the finder would be to ask them to give some of it away.  I should
think that there would be many people who would be willing to do this,
but I don't think it would make us look good to write and ask to give
it away.

-Lucas Wiman
_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-18 Thread poke


10% for George
10% for Scott
10% for Discoverer
10% Charity/Scholarship (The Mersenne Scholarship Fund)
60% divided evenly to everyone who contributed, based on CPU cycles
contributed after the last Mersenne prime found.

If someone manages to double the speed, it should be assumed that the CPU
cycles that are saved would be credited to that person.


-Chuck


 --
 ~~~
: WWW: http://www.silverlink.net/poke   :
: E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] :
 ~~
: Ask Mike! Aviation's response to Dear :
: Abby. http://www.avstarair.com: 
 ~~~

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-18 Thread poke


I hate the charity idea only because it seems to me that a "Mersenne
Scholarship Fund" would do much more for our project in many ways:

1. We could control where the money goes to a greater extent.
2. It would allow us to contribute a great deal more mathematics in
general.
3. More notariety.

-Chuck

On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, Eric Hahn wrote:

> George Woltman wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >
> > At the risk of opening Pandora's box, I'd like to bring
> >up the possibility of splitting up the $100,000 award for a 10 million
> >digit prime.  I'm soliciting everyone's opinion before making a decision.
> >
> 
> 1/4 to George or charity (his choice)
> 1/4 to Scott or charity (his choice)
> 1/2 to the discover(s) or charity*
> 
> *The discover(s) get to chose only if there is orderly
> exploration of exponents. Otherwise, it goes to a 
> charity of their choice.
> 
> That would be changed to 20%, 20%, 40%, and 20%, with the
> last 20% going to the individual(s) responsible for
> increasing the search speed significantly, if such event
> occurs.
> 
> This promotes an orderly exploration of exponents, yet
> allows those who want to find a 10M digit prime just
> for fun (and unorderly) to have the opportunity without
> being completely penalized.  It also encourages the
> advancement and development of new algorithms.
> 
> This is all, of course, assuming a GIMPser is the
> discover(s)...
> 
> 
> _
> Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
> Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
> 

 --
 ~~~
: WWW: http://www.silverlink.net/poke   :
: E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] :
 ~~
: Ask Mike! Aviation's response to Dear :
: Abby. http://www.avstarair.com: 
 ~~~

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-18 Thread Peter-Lawrence . Montgomery

> >7)  Anyone that makes a mathematical or algorithmic breakthrough that
> >speeds up the search process.  I'm talking about a doubling in search speed
> >not a 1% speedup in assembly code.
>
  > I think that this would be great -- but I seriously doubt that any
> improvement will be found.  We can't get any better with FP FFTs, since we
> don't have any zero-padding any more, and you've specifically disallowed
> implementational improvements.  A switch to integer FFTs might be better
> for huge FFT lengths, but integer arithmetic is currently very slow
> compared to FP arithmetic, so I doubt that will end up helping.
  > Really, the only hope I can see for a significant improvement is a really
> fast implementation of Schonhage-Strasen multiplication, but
> Schonhage-Strassn is almost infamously slow.

  I can dream of some possibilities.  For example, somebody
might find a way to easily detect whether Mp has an odd or an even
number of prime factors, without revealing the factors themselves.
We could reject all Mp with an even number of prime factors.
If the test runs quickly, this could almost double the search time.

  Other potential improvements are borderline.  For example,

   *)  Somebody finds how to parallelize the FFT using little
   communication.  The wall-clock time might be reduced 10-fold,
   but the CPU time increased 16-fold.  This could be
   great for verifying a new Mersenne prime, but
   does it qualify for the money?

   *)  Somebody finds a novel way to choose elliptic
   curves modulo Mp, using the information that
   its prime factors are == 1 (mod p) and that 2, -p
   are quadratic residues modulo any factor of Mp.
   This lets the trial division phase search 10 bits higher, 
   such as searching to 2^74 rather than 2^64.  
   Does its finder get any money?

   *)  Somebody finds a way to verify the output of the LL test
   without a complete rerun (cf. verification of digital signatures).
   If this eliminates the need for double-checks, does it qualify?

 Peter Montgomery



_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-18 Thread Colin Percival

At 11:44 AM 18/07/99 -0700, George Woltman wrote:
>2)  Me.  Some would argue that I share some of the credit for any
>Mersenne discoveries.  Be aware that I will donate any share to charity.

  I think that giving some to George is a great idea, with one change:  Buy
him a new computer with some of the money.
  I distinctly remember him telling me that he couldn't look into Pentium
III optimizations because he didn't have a Pentium III.
  Not only would the most deserving person (IMHO) get some of the prize,
but it would be in such a way that it benefitted GIMPS as well.

>3)  Scott Kurowski.  He has real expenses in running the PrimeNet server
>that should be reimbursed and has been instrumental in GIMPS' growth.

  I don't think that this would be a good idea.  I can't speak for Scott (I
can barely speak for myself ;-) ), but it seems to me that entropia
benefits from GIMPS mostly due to the publicity it gets.
  I'm sure the publicity would be far more favorable if he can say that
entropia is _donating_ its services, rather than having to admit that he is
getting some of the money.

>7)  Anyone that makes a mathematical or algorithmic breakthrough that 
>speeds up the search process.  I'm talking about a doubling in search speed
>not a 1% speedup in assembly code.

  I think that this would be great -- but I seriously doubt that any
improvement will be found.  We can't get any better with FP FFTs, since we
don't have any zero-padding any more, and you've specifically disallowed
implementational improvements.  A switch to integer FFTs might be better
for huge FFT lengths, but integer arithmetic is currently very slow
compared to FP arithmetic, so I doubt that will end up helping.
  Really, the only hope I can see for a significant improvement is a really
fast implementation of Schonhage-Strasen multiplication, but
Schonhage-Strassn is almost infamously slow.


Colin Percival
PS.  As for the idea of buying computers just to search for primes, GIMPS
currently has maybe $5 million of computers working on it.  Whatever could
be bought would probably have less impact than a single article in a major
newspaper about GIMPS.  (For reference, when the NY Times wrote about my
computation of the 5 trillionth bit of Pi, I got over 200 new volunteers).

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-17 Thread Spike Jones

Chip Lynch wrote:

> Have a party... wouldn't YOU like to meet the other people working with
> GIMPS?  Frankly, this wouldn't be THAT expensive, and we could even make
> it a symposium or something call for papers or research in the area of
> computational number theory.

Great idea Chip!  I think there's a bunch of GIMPSers that hang out
in Santa Clara county or SF Bay area.  We could do something that
wouldnt cost anything, like a potluck picnic at a local park, or a group
hike or just a social gathering.  We could see if Scott wanted to come,
and if he showed up we could wax his car, or carry him off the field
on our shoulders, that sorta thing.  {8^D  Ideas?  spike

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-17 Thread Chip Lynch

The EFF of course, is offering the prize to help the advancement of just
this sort of distributed computing (well, in a simplified nutshell).  I
don't think anyone should "profit" from GIMPS, but if we were to win a
huge prize, I think we should use the money as it's intended.

The idea of giving money for people who come up with speed improvements or
large contributions to prime theory is a good one, and certainly anyone
that incurrs expenses (Scott, George... anyone) should be reimbursed...
this is a small part of these prizes.

Here are a few other off the wall ideas... they should be taken
semi-seriously; more as an exercise in lateral thinking than anything
else.

Beyond giving out the money in our own way, we could use it to increase
GIMPs computing power in a few ways.  If we started a non-profit
organization, we could buy our own server farms with the money... Hell, we
could double our speed right now by spending $50,000 on vanilla pentiums,
a room, and a huge electric bill.  I bet a few people on the group would
volunteer time to keep it up.  When the money runs out, donate the
computers to a school or something; even then, the money then becomes well
spent on continuing the computer industry, within parallel computing, and
within education; a worthy cause.

Or this... pay a computer manufacturer to subsidize computer sales to
academia with the requisite that the Prime95 (or similar) software is
installed ahead of time?  Or just donate money to high-schools or colleges
to buy computers with the requisite that they help the GIMPs project?
Again, everyone wins, and noone feels greedy.

OR... we could fund the production of sieving/LL testing hardware.  I'd
like to see a four inch square cube sitting on my desk running factor.exe
all day.  :-)

Advertise... could you imagine advertisements for GIMPs in the Wall Street
Journal?  :-)  Or a good spot on Cartoon Network or the Sci Fi Channel.

Have a party... wouldn't YOU like to meet the other people working with
GIMPS?  Frankly, this wouldn't be THAT expensive, and we could even make
it a symposium or something call for papers or research in the area of
computational number theory.

I could go on... but I imagine this is long enough, and people probably
won't make it much further.

Just some ideas.  I admit, tho, that although I'm not completely sure what
happend to the current prize money, everyone on the project should at
least have a vote or a word in a discussion about what happens to it. 

Later,
---Chip

   \\ ^ //
(o o)
 ---oOO--(_)--OOo
| Chip Lynch|   Computer Guru|
| [EMAIL PROTECTED]   || 
| (703) 465-4176   (w)  |   (202) 362-7978   (h) |
 


_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-17 Thread Christopher E. Brown

On Sun, 18 Jul 1999, Otto Bruggeman wrote:
> I propose we split it like this :
> 33% to the finder of the first 10,000,000 digit prime,
> 33% to Scott and George, for doing excellent work
> 33% to charity, deciding by vote by all the members of gimps, every
> doublecheck gives an extra vote over factoring and LL-testing. Just an
> incentive to catch up on the doublechecking...

Ok, but who gets the leftover 1%?  (I would vote me of
course).

Just had to go there, given the focus here bad math is just
funny.


First Law of System Requirements:
 "Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about..."

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-17 Thread Eric Hahn

George Woltman wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>   At the risk of opening Pandora's box, I'd like to bring
>up the possibility of splitting up the $100,000 award for a 10 million
>digit prime.  I'm soliciting everyone's opinion before making a decision.
>

1/4 to George or charity (his choice)
1/4 to Scott or charity (his choice)
1/2 to the discover(s) or charity*

*The discover(s) get to chose only if there is orderly
exploration of exponents. Otherwise, it goes to a 
charity of their choice.

That would be changed to 20%, 20%, 40%, and 20%, with the
last 20% going to the individual(s) responsible for
increasing the search speed significantly, if such event
occurs.

This promotes an orderly exploration of exponents, yet
allows those who want to find a 10M digit prime just
for fun (and unorderly) to have the opportunity without
being completely penalized.  It also encourages the
advancement and development of new algorithms.

This is all, of course, assuming a GIMPser is the
discover(s)...


_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-17 Thread Otto Bruggeman

> Hi all,
>
> At the risk of opening Pandora's box, I'd like to bring
> up the possibility of splitting up the $100,000 award for a 10 million
> digit prime.  I'm soliciting everyone's opinion before making a decision.

I propose we split it like this :

33% to the finder of the first 10,000,000 digit prime,
33% to Scott and George, for doing excellent work
33% to charity, deciding by vote by all the members of gimps, every
doublecheck gives an extra vote over factoring and LL-testing. Just an
incentive to catch up on the doublechecking...

Otto.

_
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ  -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-17 Thread Spike Jones

George Woltman wrote:

>4)  The discoverers of any Mersenne primes between now and the 10,000,000
>digit discovery.  This will encourage an orderly exploration of the exponents
>and keep up interest over the coming years.

You have anticipated my idea, George.  The EFF awards should have been
structured this way to start with.  Even better would be dividing equally
between George, Scott, discoverers of Mersenne <10^10^7, discover of
the first prime >10^10^7, and me.  [kidding on the last part  {8^D  ]  spike


Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm



Re: Mersenne: The $100,000 award for 10,000,000 digit prime

1999-07-17 Thread Luke Welsh

At 05:32 PM 7/17/99 -0400, George Woltman wrote:
>   At the risk of opening Pandora's box, I'd like to bring
>up the possibility of splitting up the $100,000 award for a 10 million
>digit prime.

1/3 to George, or a charity of his choice
1/3 to Scott, or as he wishes, e.g. Entropia.com
1/3 to the discover(s)

--Luke


Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm