[QUOTE=Jwb52z;141568]Guys, please stop trying to reason with Dr. Silverman. He can't, or won't, understand that people deserve anything unless they "reinvent the wheel" and do things from scratch.[/QUOTE]

I concur that this is not fair. He has raised a valid issue for debate. I've wrestled with the prize rules many times. I'm not fully satisfied with them and think they need to be changed.

1) Bob is right. Does someone "deserve" a huge windfall for simply doing download, setup, and forget about it?
2) In 1999, when a 10M test took 2 years there was more rationale for the large award. When the GIMPS wavefront passed 10M it did become a raffle.
3) What about honoring the original EFF donor's wishes? If GIMPS took the $100K and kept it all or gave it to charity, then we've subverted the donor's desire to spur Internet collaboration.
4) The large prize does attract more CPUs, but at what cost? Do you really want the finders of Mersenne primes having absolutely no appreciation of what they've discovered?

This is a fine balancing act. Make your thoughts known. Hypothetically speaking, what would you propose for the $150K award that is probably 15 years away.

[QUOTE=ET_;141577]Well, he actually helped me: now I am extremely careful when ask math-realted questions, and never before studying the subject :smile:

Luigi[/QUOTE]

Ditto.

[QUOTE=Prime95;141592]Make your thoughts known. Hypothetically speaking, what would you propose for the $150K award that is probably 15 years away.[/QUOTE]

A prize should be divided among those people:

1 - Richard Crandall who discovered the algorithm.
2 - George Woltman who implemented it in assembly language and created GIMPS.
3 - Scott Kurowski who designed Primenet.
4 - Ernst Mayer and Guillermo Ballester Valor who released the software in multi-threaded fashion on non-Intel platforms.
5 - Mike (Xyzzy) who took the idea of developing this forum and opened GIMPS doors to thousands of "aficionados".
6 - Team Prime Rib who got the idea of developing a stats site where everyone could challenge other GIMPSers (and did a terrific work cleaning up non prime Mersenne numbers).

I could add the first 100 Mersenne crunchers, but I'm in there, and could appear biased in this proposal. :innocent:

Those people made the difference, and should get rewarded. Just think to the time and effort each one of them put in making this dream real, with no prize whatsoever, no money earned from their work. They dedicated each minute of their spare time to the project, and got nothing in change till now.

Apart from a place in history and our eternal gratitude.

Luigi

[QUOTE=ET_;141609]I could add the first 100 Mersenne crunchers,[/QUOTE]First temporally or first in magnitude of contribution?



[U]If[/U] it is awarded more or less 'raffle style', maybe then add a further break down: X to the person that ran the LL, X/Y to the person that did the P-1 (if not the same as the LL, X/Z to be divided by all those that put forth factoring effort on the number.

We don't deserve any money. (We wish there wasn't any prize money to begin with.)

We just want our name on one of those big posters someday.

:poop:

[SIZE=1]Ghost of Gerbil1: Poster!
Ghost of Gerbil2: Yeah!
Troll1: Great taste!
Troll2: Less filling!
Snake1: Gerbils? Where?[/SIZE]

[quote=Xyzzy;141613][SIZE=1]Ghost of Gerbil1: Poster!
Ghost of Gerbil2: Yeah!
Troll1: Great taste!
Troll2: Less filling!
Snake1: Gerbils? Where?[/SIZE][/quote]
Wow! It's a historic moment--the trolls have finally spoken to humans for the first time! :shock:

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;141612]First temporally or first in magnitude of contribution?
[/QUOTE]

Hey, I threw out some ideas, now let someone else do the hard work! :devil::grin:

BTW, what happened to your avatar? Are you growing older while in hold? :uncwilly:

Luigi

[quote=Anonymous;141616]Wow! It's a historic moment--the trolls have finally spoken to humans for the first time! :shock:[/quote]I think they've spoken to gerbils and snake. People only record the sightings. :ermm:

[QUOTE=Batalov;141621]I think they've spoken to gerbils and snake. People only record the sightings. :ermm:[/QUOTE]

I feel people will soon record something else...

Luigi

GIMPS should allow some options for the user to pick from when he begins participating, and the prize will be awarded according to the option that the winning user selected.

For example:

1) Split the money between charity and the software writers
2) Split the money between the user and a charity
3) Split the money between the user and the software writers
4) Split the money between user, charity, and software writers
5) Give all the money to George

In all options, some money will be kept by the project to pay for operation costs.

It would help to get users to understand more about the people involved in the project, too.

It isn't a "vote" because the only thing that counts is the option that the winner chooses. I think this would encourage the most participation. If you find the 100M digit prime, you get to say (within some limits) how the money is distributed (you have to specify this [I]before[/I] you discover the prime, however, or some default is used). If you don't find a prime, well, thanks for playing anyway.

[quote=Prime95] 1) Bob is right. Does someone "deserve" a huge windfall for simply doing download, setup, and forget about it?[/quote]
If there is a prize, yes, I think so. As long as a prize exists I think some of it belongs to the lucky user.

[quote=Prime95]4) The large prize does attract more CPUs, but at what cost? Do you really want the finders of Mersenne primes having absolutely no appreciation of what they've discovered?[/quote]
I think that's an unfair assumption. If people were interested only in money, they shouldn't be here (the cost-effectiveness of trying to win a EFF prize is terrible, almost as bad as playing state lottery :rolleyes:).

[quote=Xyzzy] We don't deserve any money. (We wish there wasn't any prize money to begin with.)[/quote]
Yes, money needlessly complicates everything.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;141555]And I think that giving someone $50K merely for blindly running someone
else's code is ridiculous. The money should go to George for his (terrific!)
intellectual achievement in developing and providing the code. It should
also go to Richard Crandall for developing the mathematics that made the
code possible. (i.e. for developing the theory of the DWT). I would suggest
that it should also go to L & L, but that is clearly difficult :-)

I can see giving a small award to compensate for costs (e.g. electricity).
But the actual discovery was made by a MACHINE, not a person. The
credit should go to those who made the discovery possible. Blindly
running someone else's code is not an achievement IMO.[/QUOTE]

I agree that blindly running someone else's code is not an achievement. But I fully support giving prize money (half of the $100k, in this case) to the person 'discovering' the prime. Having prize money out there encourages many people to use their cycles for the project, and it's easier to compensate one random person than to give everyone a share of the $50k for electricity.