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Pastimes : Computer Learning -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ken Adams who wrote (58437)	5/12/2008 2:51:10 PM
From: Stan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110581

Actually several things about it interest me, Ken. I've always had an interest in math theories, even though I have no formal education in Math. And, there is a certain sporting aspect to this hunt which includes the very remote possibility of a cash reward if your machine happens upon a new very high prime (called a Mersenne number). Plus, Primes are very useful in computer encryption algorithms. For example, ATMs use them to secure your card from tampering. Security technologies in general rely on large primes. The other thing is that you are doing your part in working on certain tedious tasks that frees supercomputers from having to do them. Your machine works on iterations that are necessary in the hunt for the prime. This also makes computers more efficient by allowing them to be used during their idle time, which is a lot. The program runs in the background. At night, I can set my machine up to use more RAM for the program than it uses in the day. Here is a partial text from today's run (right after a reboot): "Resuming primality test of M20953973 at iteration 1155457 [5.51%] [May 12 14:12] Iteration: 1160000/20953973 [5.53%]. Per iteration time: 0.031 sec." These lines just keep repeating as the program works its way to 100% completion of the current iteration. The 5.51%/5.53% refers to the current state of completion.