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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><SPAN class=608064102-31032010>Non-math fans, do
hit the delete key quickly, thanks.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><SPAN class=608064102-31032010>If you wonder what
is making Mersenne prime people crazy as hell these days, consider this
graph. On the horizontal is the sequential number of the Mersenne prime;
observe there are 47 known now. On the vertical is the natural log of
the exponent: the first Mersenne prime is 2^2-1 so the first y is ln(2) or
about 0.693, the second is 2^3-1, so ln(3) etc. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><SPAN
class=608064102-31032010></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial><SPAN class=608064102-31032010>The more or less
log-linear relationship held for over 500 years, then in 2003 for some very odd
reason which is still way beyond my (or anyone else's) ability to explain, the
last 8 of the known Mersennes clustered, they went off on a completely new
trajectory. Isn't nature weird?</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
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