[QUOTE=T.Rex;141736]Prime of 23th of August: nearly 76% done.
Prime of 6th of September: about 37% done.
I'm late, I'm late... Need a new super-computer...
[/QUOTE]

My M[Aug] verification is now 90.5% complete and should be done sometime on the 11th.

My M[Sep] verification however is going slowly, only at 21% on that.

It doesn't help that "my" 128CPU machine has 128CPUs busy right now... While not a super-computer, I'm currently putting the final components together on my shiny new quad-core system for home with my even shinier 27" LCD display I got for 40% off. So very excited about that. With the ATI 4870 card, I will have to start playing around with gpGPU coding to see what I can do.

This thread now has more views than the "You just might be addicted..." thread, despite the latter being still alive after more than 5 years.

Why find Mersenne Primes?
As Kirk might put it (if he were interested in primes instead of mountains), "because they're there."
:smile:

[QUOTE=jinydu;141757]This thread now has more views than the "You just might be addicted..." thread, despite the latter being still alive after more than 5 years.[/QUOTE]Still hasn't caught the [url=http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=2475]41st Known Mersenne Prime Reported!! thread[/url]. [size=1]But it won't be long till it does.[/size]

[size=1]The current leader is [url=http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=1534]New to GIMPS? Start here!!![/url], 49467 views.[/size]

[size=3]Somebody is cheating! 122803 views for this thread now![/size]

For the record....
 

I joined GIMPS:
- BEFORE I knew what GIMPS was
- BEFORE I knew there was prize money
- BEFORE I knew there was a forum
- BEFORE I knew there were statistics
- BEFORE I knew there were points/credits
- BEFORE I knew of George et al
- BEFORE I knew of any of you

I am one of those "sorts" that always found pure Mathematics and especially Prime Numbers fascinating. I have spent much time over the years reading about prime-number algorithms and implementing those I could. It was through that research that I happened across GIMPS ... and downloaded Prime95 onto my PIII-400 Mhz ... and selected 10M digit prime ... and patiently watched it tick away for 15 months.

Being the one to find "The Holy Grail" would be exciting but the odds that it impacts my participation level is even lower than the odds of me finding it. And I would hazard a guess that this puts me with the majority in GIMPS.

I track the GIMPS progress and my progress daily ... but only because of my interest in statistics. I check this forum daily as a way of staying informed of progress and developments and because of what I learn for each of you.

I am just glad to be part of this project; knowing it is only possible because of the efforts of so many of you; whether your contribution was great or small. For that I am grateful.

Thanks,
Wayne

[QUOTE=Mini-Geek;141760]Why find Mersenne Primes?
As Kirk might put it (if he were interested in primes instead of mountains), "because they're there."
:smile:[/QUOTE]

Kirk would have said "to boldly go where no one has been before"...

Luigi

[QUOTE=ET_;141768]Kirk would have said "to boldly go where no one has been before"...[/QUOTE]"To boldly split infinitives like no man has done before."

[quote=ET_;141768]Kirk would have said "to boldly go where no one has been before"...

Luigi[/quote]
Yeah...haha.
I was referring to a specific quote from Star Trek V, where Spock wonders why Kirk would want to climb El Capitan, and he says "because it's there."
From [URL]http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Star_Trek_V#Memorable_Quotes[/URL]
[quote]"[I]Greetings, captain.[/I]"
"[I]Spock. What are you doing in this neck of the woods?[/I]"
"[I]I have been monitoring your progress.[/I]"
"[I]I'm flattered. Twelve hundred points of interest in Yosemite and you pick me.[/I]"
"[I]I regret to inform you that the record for free climbing [URL="http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/El_Capitan"]El Capitan[/URL] is in no danger of being broken.[/I]"
"[I]I'm not trying to break any records, Spock. I'm doing this because I enjoy it. Not to mention the most important reason for climbing a mountain.[/I]"
"[I]And that is?[/I]"
[B]"[I]Because it's there.[/I]"[/B]
"[I]Captain, I do not think you realize the gravity of your situation.[/I]"
"[I]On the contrary, gravity is foremost on my mind...[/I]"
- Kirk and Spock [/quote](bold mine)
But, trying to go from the "final frontier" thing, here's the original:
"Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before."

So, how bout something like...
"Primes, the infinite frontier. These are the voyages of the DC project GIMPS. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new exponents, to seek out new Mersenne primes and new perfect numbers, to boldly search where no man has searched before."

Of course, it'd have to be read dramatically by...George Woltman, the captain of the DC project GIMPS, and have some cool theme music.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;141745]But this is an inefficient way to use these machines. The best way is to run separate tests on separate processors. And we can test parallel FFT's without testing M_p.[/QUOTE]

All true now, but the trend is toward CPUs with a lot of cores. We may well reach the day where a single-core test takes a year or longer. To keep test times down to a manageable level (for the average impatient human operator) we will have to throw multiple cores at each test.

In Cooper and Boone's talks on [url=http://www.math-cs.ucmo.edu/~curtisc/talks/gimps_maa43/Mersenne4.pdf]M43[/url] and [url=http://www.math-cs.ucmo.edu/~curtisc/talks/gimps44/Mersenne5.pdf]M44[/url], they mention that the top reason for finding Mersenne primes was to win the EFF prize.

I was a bit disappointed. IMO, they should have put something like "To expand the bounds of human knowledge" as the #1 reason. But then again, I'm not Cooper or Boone, so I can't decide for them.

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman;141752]I thought that this was the point I was making!!!!

GIMPS should be run without any monetary gain.[/QUOTE]

The "no monetary gain" might have been the main point you were making, but I was replying specifically to the "searching for large primes is a pointless activity" tenor of your posts.

Anyway, you can't easily divorce the two - sure, George and the handful of other serious coders for the project may be happy to do it without pay. But the large user base provides ongoing incentive for us to keep at it - would you spend most of your free time for years on end writing "hobby code" for six users, and with few prospects of academic publication for the work? [Unlike basic-algorithmic improvements, writing highly optimized code doesn't publish well.]

And let's face it, while most GIMPS participants would likely be here without the monetary prize, the EFF prizes certainly provides for more publicity, and that is what attracts most participants these days.