Why I fell in love with monster prime numbers
 

A recent [url="http://www.ted.com/talks/adam_spencer_why_i_fell_in_love_with_monster_prime_numbers.html"]TED talk[/url]

I remember when this story was reported elsewhere, there was only the groaning of haters.

[QUOTE=jasonp;355168]A recent [url="http://www.ted.com/talks/adam_spencer_why_i_fell_in_love_with_monster_prime_numbers.html"]TED talk[/url]

I remember when this story was reported elsewhere, there was only the groaning of haters.[/QUOTE]

Where is the "LIKE" button?

Anyone know his GIMPS Name?

I liked his talk. Should he come to the forum, treat him like an honored guest.
Xyzzy Might want to send him some buttons.

Someone linked this a while ago and I seriously enjoyed it. Anyone who can make a crowd think "That's pretty cool!" about anything like math, big prime numbers and distributed computing gets a gold star in my books.

[QUOTE=firejuggler;355175]Should he come to the forum, treat him like an honored guest.[/QUOTE][QUOTE=petrw1;355174]Anyone know his GIMPS Name?[/QUOTE]
I sent an e-mail to his contact address (his manager.)

[QUOTE=TheMawn;355184]Someone linked this a while ago and I seriously enjoyed it. Anyone who can make a crowd think "That's pretty cool!" about anything like math, big prime numbers and distributed computing gets a gold star in my books.[/QUOTE]That was me posting about it earlier. [URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=352675&postcount=5"]link[/URL]. I like it a lot for similar reasons.

I liked the video
 

[QUOTE=jasonp;355168]A recent [URL="http://www.ted.com/talks/adam_spencer_why_i_fell_in_love_with_monster_prime_numbers.html"]TED talk[/URL]

I remember when this story was reported elsewhere, there was only the groaning of haters.[/QUOTE]
I like to think, and begin by pretending I may know something. I discover, learn, and try to prove. At least in the language of math you can. All divine statements are feminine intuitive conjectures. To divine means to seek. This is the who,what,when, where, why, and how of GIMPS! And doesn't it all just come down to a divined how much?

I liked the talk. No actual mathematics to speak of, but anyone that can get people to cheer like that for a talk about prime numbers is good in my book.

I liked the story about the square block in a circular hole. That's my kind of answer!

It sounds like one of those creative physics question for the applicants to MPhTI:
Q: "What is the minimum speed needed for an average-sized human to run over the surface of a lake while staying above water level?"

A: [SPOILER]Pretty much any speed, provided that T[SUB]lake[/SUB]<=273K[/SPOILER]

Although maths has always been at the heart of my life since birth, the significance of Mersennes hit me while reading an article in "New Scientist" on the new algorithm to factorize in polynomial time. It mentioned that the largest known prime was discovered by Kim Novak. Apparently he just walked out of the sea in his white bikini and found it on the beach.
That dates the occasion sometime between February and December 2005.

I bought a book by Marcus du Sautoy entitled "Music of the Primes". I recommend it to all. It included what the Lucas-Lehmer test was. Being a shit-hot assembly programmmer I promptly wrote my own.
With the aid of "The Math" page from GIMPS I also wrote a trial factoring program.
I ran the LL test on a pentium2 350 and a K6 450, and did the TF on a 486 66.
Within a few months I had confirmed that M29 was in fact M29.

You know the rest:smile:

David