[ExI] 2^57885161-1

Dave Sill sparge at gmail.com
Sun Feb 10 03:48:35 UTC 2013


On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 10:55 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>>... On Behalf Of Dave Sill
>
>>...One problem is that busy CPUs consume more power than ones, so the
> unused cycles aren't free. Another problem is that most CPU chips have
> multiple cores, so keeping only one of them busy won't tell whether there's
> a virus running on another one. So you have to keep all of the cores busy.
> Combine the first problem with the second problem and you a third potential
> problem: overheating...
>
> OK, so take all your new computers and run this app for a couple months, see
> if they overheat.  If so, collect on the warranty.

Warranty? I don't got no steenkin' warranty. I built the box myself.
And it doesn't take months to overheat. With Folding at Home running on
all six cores, the temperature alarm triggers in less than five
minutes. But I didn't build the system to run F at H and it has never
alarmed under normal use, so I'm not inclined to upgrade the cooler.

>>...But your proposed practical application of large primes doesn't answer
> the question about their mathematical importance.
>
> Ja, I didn't really attempt that one at all.  Mostly they are an engineering
> and entertainment thing, but look at a possible indirect benefit to
> mathematics: young people notice how cool is this whole exercise and become
> inspired to study mathematics in college.  Then perhaps they go on to
> graduate school and post-grad, and then perhaps greatness.  Or perhaps they
> figure out some cool statistical model (stretching a bit to call this
> mathematics) to use superposition of probability distribution functions to
> derive a method to predict the approximate time interval until the next
> record prime is discovered, as I did thrice in 1998, 2000 and 2001, which
> resulted in my eventually finding myself in Damien's completely
> coincidentally wildly cool excellent book The Spike, which was not named
> after me.

Hey, I'm with you Spike. I'm just curious about real significance of
these huge primes.

-Dave



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