Prime Time

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ne1410s
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Prime Time

#1 Post by ne1410s » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:45 pm

UCLA mathematicians have discovered a prime number with over 13 million digits. The number will be published next year. How do I get an Amazon account? :roll: :roll:
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SportsFan68
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Re: Prime Time

#2 Post by SportsFan68 » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:23 pm

ne1410s wrote:UCLA mathematicians have discovered a prime number with over 13 million digits. The number will be published next year. How do I get an Amazon account? :roll: :roll:
Where are they gonna publish something with 13 million digits?

And why?
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Re: Prime Time

#3 Post by KillerTomato » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:35 pm

ne1410s wrote:UCLA mathematicians have discovered a prime number with over 13 million digits. The number will be published next year. How do I get an Amazon account? :roll: :roll:


I'll bet you a million bucks it's an odd number.
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Re: Prime Time

#4 Post by Bob78164 » Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:44 pm

ne1410s wrote:UCLA mathematicians have discovered a prime number with over 13 million digits. The number will be published next year. How do I get an Amazon account? :roll: :roll:
Actually, it only has 12,978,189 digits. It's 2^43,112,609-1, and that obviously can't have 13 million digits.

Also, it wasn't discovered by UCLA mathematicians. It was discovered on UCLA computers using GIMPS software as screen savers. I assume that GIMPS is an acronym for Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. --Bob
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Re: Prime Time

#5 Post by ulysses5019 » Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:51 pm

Bob78164 wrote:
ne1410s wrote:UCLA mathematicians have discovered a prime number with over 13 million digits. The number will be published next year. How do I get an Amazon account? :roll: :roll:
Actually, it only has 12,978,189 digits. It's 2^43,112,609-1, and that obviously can't have 13 million digits.

Also, it wasn't discovered by UCLA mathematicians. It was discovered on UCLA computers using GIMPS software as screen savers. I assume that GIMPS is an acronym for Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. --Bob
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Re: Prime Time

#6 Post by Estonut » Sat Sep 27, 2008 3:33 am

SportsFan68 wrote:Where are they gonna publish something with 13 million digits?

And why?
Who's going to proofread it?
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Re: Prime Time

#7 Post by Beebs52 » Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:54 am

Estonut wrote:
SportsFan68 wrote:Where are they gonna publish something with 13 million digits?

And why?
Who's going to proofread it?
Who's gonna cook it/them?

Wait. That's books.

Never mind.
Well, then
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#8 Post by ne1410s » Sat Sep 27, 2008 2:09 pm

UCLA mathematicians discover a 13-million-digit prime number
The mathematicians have found the first verified Mersenne prime number with more than 10 million digits, putting them in line to win a six-digit prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Bob ######,

What part of this article don't you understand?
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#9 Post by Bob78164 » Sat Sep 27, 2008 3:19 pm

ne1410s wrote:
UCLA mathematicians discover a 13-million-digit prime number
The mathematicians have found the first verified Mersenne prime number with more than 10 million digits, putting them in line to win a six-digit prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Bob ######,

What part of this article don't you understand?
The article got it wrong. To be more precise, it approximated. It is arguably accurate, as an approximation, to describe the number as a 13-million-digit number. It is clearly inaccurate to say, as you did, that the number has more than 13 million digits.

I went right to the source, which I linked. --Bob
Last edited by Bob78164 on Sat Sep 27, 2008 3:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Prime Time

#10 Post by Bob78164 » Sat Sep 27, 2008 3:30 pm

SportsFan68 wrote:Where are they gonna publish something with 13 million digits?
Here.
SportsFan68 wrote:And why?
Because we're mathematicians. --Bob
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#11 Post by ne1410s » Sat Sep 27, 2008 6:59 pm

Also, it wasn't discovered by UCLA mathematicians.
This was the line I had a problem with. The numbers are meaningless to me.
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#12 Post by Bob78164 » Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:50 pm

ne1410s wrote:
Also, it wasn't discovered by UCLA mathematicians.
This was the line I had a problem with. The numbers are meaningless to me.
It wasn't the mathematicians at UCLA who discovered the number. The guy who was named is the head of IT. He installed the software as screen savers in the Computer Lab. --Bob
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#13 Post by Bob Juch » Sat Sep 27, 2008 9:49 pm

Bob78164 wrote:
ne1410s wrote:
Also, it wasn't discovered by UCLA mathematicians.
This was the line I had a problem with. The numbers are meaningless to me.
It wasn't the mathematicians at UCLA who discovered the number. The guy who was named is the head of IT. He installed the software as screen savers in the Computer Lab. --Bob
My college buddy from UCLA is still there and is the top guy for the campus business computer center (not the one used by the students). I'll have to ask him about this.
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