mersenne.org repeatedly down
 

Over the last few days, I've noticed that mersenne.org has often been down, but never for a long period of time. Does anyone know what is going on?

It's working normally right now. It's possible that the server problems were caused by high traffic following the discovery of M47.

[quote=ixfd64;177495]It's working normally right now. It's possible that the server problems were caused by high traffic following the discovery of M47.[/quote]

Isn't "M46" its official name?

[QUOTE=10metreh;177505]Isn't "M46" its official name?[/QUOTE]Who sets 'official'? Where is IUPAC when you need them, or IAU, or L'Académie française, or Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum (they make the french look like a bunch of pikers)? I would say that it is the 47th M number found. Why not call it M47 then?

[QUOTE=10metreh;177505]Isn't "M46" its official name?[/QUOTE]And what happens if another smaller prime is found? Do we keep "officially" [b]re[/b]naming it?

[size=1]And just who is the "official" that named it that?[/size]

[quote=retina;177510]And what happens if another smaller prime is found? Do we keep "officially" [B]re[/B]naming it?

[SIZE=1]And just who is the "official" that named it that?[/SIZE][/quote]

The reason I'm calling it M46 is because M43112609 was the 45th Mersenne discovered, but it was often referred to as M46 because it was the 46th in size order.

[QUOTE=10metreh;177511]The reason I'm calling it M46 is because M43112609 was the 45th Mersenne discovered, but it was often referred to as M46 because it was the 46th in size order.[/QUOTE]Yeah, I know. But I'm just giving ya a little bit of stick, I thought you could take it, I guess I was mistaken. Nevermind, relax, pedantry seems to be a hobby for many here, so I imagine you will encounter more of the same from others in the future.

[size=1]Better put on your full body armour, all those sticks poking you will start to hurt after a while. :sirrobin:[/size]

[QUOTE=10metreh;177505]Isn't "M46" its official name?[/QUOTE]If one uses the M47 shorthand for the 47[sup]th[/sup] Mersenne prime, it can refer to its rank by size and it is liable to change as happened recently or it can refer to its discovery date which would make 2[sup]127[/sup]-1 M9 instead of M12 and 2[sup]110503[/sup]-1 M31 instead of M29.

The "Official" website counts Mersenne by order of size not by discovery date :

# Countdown to proving M(20996011) is the 40th Mersenne Prime: 851
# Countdown to proving M(24036583) is the 41st Mersenne Prime: 46,326
# Countdown to proving M(25964951) is the 42nd Mersenne Prime: 87,299
# Countdown to proving M(30402457) is the 43rd Mersenne Prime: 181,532
# Countdown to proving M(32582657) is the 44th Mersenne Prime: 227,745
# Countdown to proving M(37156667) is the 45th Mersenne Prime: 322,211
# Countdown to proving M(42643801) is the 46th Mersenne Prime: 438,236
# Countdown to proving M(43112609) is the 47th Mersenne Prime: 448,404

The page about the Mersenne primes on [url=http://primes.utm.edu/mersenne/index.html]The Prime Pages[/url] follow that rule as well [quote]We put question marks instead of a number for the the last of the Mersenne primes because it will not be known if there are other Mersenne's in between these until a check and double check has been completed by GIMPS. See the GIMPS Status Page for more information. Not all smaller exponents have been tested. [/quote]

Jacob

If you wanted to make it clear which you mean, you could denote "the 46th largest Mersenne prime as of right now". e.g. say something like "M46 as of 2009-06-14 11:03:38 GMT" or with Unix time so it's a bit shorter: "M46-1244977418". But that's all longer and a lot harder to deal with than just saying M42643801.
...or, in any dated statement, like posts on this forum, you can just say M46 and people can look at your time and figure out themselves which number you're referring to.

[quote=S485122;177516]If one uses the M47 shorthand for the 47[sup]th[/sup] Mersenne prime, it can refer to its rank by size and it is liable to change as happened recently or it can refer to its discovery date which would make 2[sup]127[/sup]-1 M9 instead of M12 and 2[sup]110503[/sup]-1 M31 instead of M29.

[/quote]

See also the paragraph on Hurwitz' discovery of M19 and M20 in 1961.
[URL]http://primes.utm.edu/notes/by_year.html#2[/URL]

Caldwell takes the view that he discovered M(4423) before M(4253)
because he saw the output for M(4423) first.
So Lycorn or Kevin discovered M(42643801) first?

David

PS At least we all understand what "Predict M48" means.

[quote=davieddy;177529]See also the paragraph on Hurwitz' discovery of M19 and M20 in 1961.
[URL]http://primes.utm.edu/notes/by_year.html#2[/URL]

Caldwell takes the view that he discovered M(4423) before M(4253)
because he saw the output for M(4423) first.
So Lycorn or Kevin discovered M(42643801) first?

David[/quote]
It's a bit like this: stigmv uncovered a diamond (i.e. Mersenne prime) in a big field (i.e. the many possible candidates) and both he and the automated diamond-searcher (i.e. the email system to George) didn't notice it, and eventually Lycorn noticed it.

I'd think that some amount of credit should go to each of them. But then wouldn't that mean that in a normal situation George or Scott should get credit for the discovery of a Mersenne prime if they happen to see the e-mail before anyone else? Likewise, if it was automatically posted to a very visible location the web site, (like a new article on the front page) would the first person that happens to see it be the discoverer?

To relate it to the Hurwitz situation: if a janitor had happened to read "M4253 is prime!" (or whatever the output was, and assuming that he could understand the output) before Hurwitz saw "M4423 is prime!" would M4253 be "discovered" before M4423? If so, shouldn't the "discoverer" be the janitor, even though he wasn't the one that actually wrote the program or set the computer to run it, or anything?

If a prime falls in the woods but nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound? er...Say a computer running Prime95 finds a prime with the owner watching, so he knows right away, but before either the computer or the owner can communicate that to anyone/anything (e.g. PrimeNet), something happens (flaming meteor crashes through the window?) and the owner is killed and the hard drive disk containing this information is in a very bad shape. Say it can still be read by a professional data recovery crew, (hey, they [URL="http://blog.800hightech.com/data_recovery-melted-damged-hard_drive_disk-aboard-space_shuttle-columbia/1816/"]recovered Space Shuttle Columbia's data[/URL]) and they find "Mxxx IS A NEW MERSENNE PRIME!!!" in the Prime95 log files. Who is the discoverer?
[quote=davieddy;177529]PS At least we all understand what "Predict M48" means.[/quote]
What if you think the 48th Mersenne prime to be discovered will be smaller than M43112609? Then we don't exactly all agree.

[quote=10metreh;177511]The reason I'm calling it M46 is because M43112609 was the 45th Mersenne discovered, but it was often referred to as M46 because it was the 46th in size order.[/quote]
There's another ambiguity there.
Is M43112609 the 43112609th Mersenne Prime discovered?

I like M(x) to mean 2[SUP]x[/SUP]-1

I agree, Plandon. I take M47 to mean the 47th Mersenne prime by size. This of course would be adjusted as needed in the event of smaller Mersennes being found. If not by size, then an indicator should be given such as the 47th Mersenne prime by date of discovery. I take M(48037183) to mean 2^48037183 -1.

[quote=Mini-Geek;177560]It's a bit like this: stigmv uncovered a diamond (i.e. Mersenne prime) in a big field (i.e. the many possible candidates) and both he and the automated diamond-searcher (i.e. the email system to George) didn't notice it, and eventually Lycorn noticed it.

I'd think that some amount of credit should go to each of them. But then wouldn't that mean that in a normal situation George or Scott should get credit for the discovery of a Mersenne prime if they happen to see the e-mail before anyone else? Likewise, if it was automatically posted to a very visible location the web site, (like a new article on the front page) would the first person that happens to see it be the discoverer?

To relate it to the Hurwitz situation: if a janitor had happened to read "M4253 is prime!" (or whatever the output was, and assuming that he could understand the output) before Hurwitz saw "M4423 is prime!" would M4253 be "discovered" before M4423? If so, shouldn't the "discoverer" be the janitor, even though he wasn't the one that actually wrote the program or set the computer to run it, or anything?

If a prime falls in the woods but nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound? er...Say a computer running Prime95 finds a prime with the owner watching, so he knows right away, but before either the computer or the owner can communicate that to anyone/anything (e.g. PrimeNet), something happens (flaming meteor crashes through the window?) and the owner is killed and the hard drive disk containing this information is in a very bad shape. Say it can still be read by a professional data recovery crew, (hey, they [URL="http://blog.800hightech.com/data_recovery-melted-damged-hard_drive_disk-aboard-space_shuttle-columbia/1816/"]recovered Space Shuttle Columbia's data[/URL]) and they find "Mxxx IS A NEW MERSENNE PRIME!!!" in the Prime95 log files. Who is the discoverer?

What if you think the 48th Mersenne prime to be discovered will be smaller than M43112609? Then we don't exactly all agree.[/quote]
THX for this great response.

The question posed by the Hurwitz analogy is "when?" rather than "who?"
made the discovery. The vagueness of "who" is catered for by the
familiar attribution "Odd, George, Scott et al" aka GIMPS.

I would say the tree that fell in the wood made a sound as soon as
it finished its test and wrote it to the results file (April 12th).

The 48th Mprime to be discovered may (highly likely:smile:) be less
than M47(?) but that merely emphasizes that "Predict M48"
is interpreted as the next to be discovered.

David

Generally there is no ambiguity with whether Mx means 2^x-1 or the xth Mersenne prime, because, in the case of the former, x will probably be too big for the latter to have been found.

[quote=10metreh;177620]Generally there is no ambiguity with whether Mx means 2^x-1 or the xth Mersenne prime, because, in the case of the former, x will probably be too big for the latter to have been found.[/quote]
I agree. Even if I say M31, I expect people to know what I'm talking
about, assuming I have made it clear whether it's Euler or
Colquitt/Welsh (aka M29) I'm referring to.