Other math projects...
 

I have been asked if we could host another mathematical project on this BBS... We have the room and bandwidth, so that is not a problem... One forum or twenty all costs the same... I could create another subforum or even another category for these projects... The drawback would be some additional confusion maybe for newcomers... There might be other drawbacks that I am not aware of...

The forum(s) could also be "hidden" and only accessable to people belonging to a certain usergroup...

Please let me know what you think of this...

Which mathematical project is it that you are thinking about hosting?

Definately not in my opinion. Anything that really needs to be said can go in Lounge (perhaps software or math too). Other DC projects all have their own forums and I think a forum dedicated to 'em would be both confusing and counter-productive to GIMPS.

By other projects I mean the little ones linked to off of George's "Other Projects" page...

http://www.mersenne.org/projects.htm

A lot of these projects are very closely related to GIMPS...

I do agree that they might complicate the forum... I only bring it up because someone asked and because it doesn't cost anything...

Nobody in charge of any of these projects has approached me... It was brought up in a chat with a member of one of the projects mentioning that a single place to share info would be ideal, since a lot of the ideas overlap... Also, most of these projects do not have the budget to implement something like this and like I mentioned before, additional forums don't cost us any more...

That said, the decision is up to you all, and George in particular... I'm just fishing for opinions here...

Maybe it could be a permanent thread under "The Math" area.

I agree with [b]Deamiter[/b] that another forum would be confusing and counter-productive to GIMPS, which is the main goal for us. At least for some time I would prefer to leave things as they are and let this very forum "gain weight". We should drag some ex-RC5-64 guys... ;)

It looks like the answer is no... :)

Yes and no, we need to bring them together to overlap ideas without creating to much white noise.

Idea!
We need a happy medium, possibly several main pages going (A-Z) into the math for specific prime projects. A resource area of important facts, and graphs etc. This will help eliminat FAQ.


As far as counter-production, I believe that in the long run periferal study of factorization, overall will only improve gims.


If we organize members better, over time we are bound to find new insights. Let's look at us as a computer program or algorithm that needs to be refined. This eventually may improve efficiency of finding prime numbers.

Any ideas?

Idea!

Create subgroups forum area, to tackle larger probable primes that would be to big for any one member.

There would be an equation for this ratio between subgroups size(speed), and probability of primality.

For example one member has approx 1/x chance of finding a mersenne.
A subgroup increases this probability so they can try proportionately larger M(p). If kept under-proportion, the frequency of finding mersenne primes may increase.

If the entire gimps project was re-aranged we could possibly make an even harder impact. I feel prime numbers will play a role in the distribution of the optimum chances.

Prevalence is a non-singular event(John Forbes Nash)

Hmmm.... that sounds like a rather complicated adjustment of the P95 program rather than just a new forum. Actually I think the idea of a FAQ and DC page is wonderful, but It doesn't seem nessicary to me to try to go after really big numbers that are less likely to be prime than to simply keep running the program as it is.

I meant general grouping, to split a larger prize.
Each person would still test one number.

I would rather see a few thousand dollars in the near future.
Instead of, a full small prize outside of my lifetime.