[QUOTE=Prime95;423086]I know I was the first human to know about M42603801 for the same reason as Aaron. When email notification works, there is no way to know which human is the first to open up the email to become the first human aware of a new prime.

Correct attribution all depends on one's definition of "discoverer".

BTW, it is a pretty cool feeling to be the only one on the planet to know about a new Mersenne prime.[/QUOTE]

I thought Lycorn was the first one to notice M42603801 in the server reports?

[QUOTE=ixfd64;423088]I thought Lycorn was the first one to notice M42603801 in the server reports?[/QUOTE]

But it took a database query to find the value of the exponent. But you are right, one could argue there were two initial discoverers, one that discovered a new prime was found and one who new its value.

[QUOTE=chalsall;423058][URL="http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a19030/newly-discovered-prime-number-is-22-million-digits-long/"]Popular Mechanics[/URL][/QUOTE]

Their words...not mine.

[QUOTE] It's only a matter of time before we find the first billion-digit prime. [/QUOTE]

Part of me is a little disappointed when the first question people ask upon hearing about such discoveries is "What is the practical use of it?", like the excitement of searching for something new isn't enough of a reason. "Why look for it at all?" My answer is the same one that George Mallory gave when asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest... "Because it's there". I guess I'm cynical because I don't want people to think "how will this help us" and everything that is discovered has to be useful from the off. Mind you, even Heinrich Hertz dismissed his discovery of an open-ended circuit inducing a current in an external coil (i.e. wireless transmission / radio waves) as a quirk that had no practical value!

And as has been discussed before, the Lucas-Lehmer primality test is a great stress test for hardware and has uncovered flaws before, either in processor architecture in general or, in my personal case, a defective PSU.

I'm a little disappointed that most places running the story don't mention the discovery of the Intel hardware bug.

Has there been a surge in new LL assignments / new users?

[QUOTE=Prime95;423086]I know I was the first human to know about M42603801 for the same reason as Aaron. When email notification works, there is no way to know which human is the first to open up the email to become the first human aware of a new prime.

Correct attribution all depends on one's definition of "discoverer".

BTW, it is a pretty cool feeling to be the only one on the planet to know about a new Mersenne prime.[/QUOTE]

Even leaving aside something like a read receipt, with a reasonably small number of humans receiving the email, you could just ask them when they each first saw it. It loses the immediacy of "I'm reading this and know right now that I'm the only one who knows it", but it's still determinable (within some degree of accuracy - if multiple people see the notification within a minute or so of each other, you may never know).

Let's say I find a new Mersenne prime during the night, and while the email goes out as planned, I don't see it (or other notifications, like the "make a noise" feature or just reading the output myself) for a few hours. In the mean time, you are the first to read the email. So did you discover it? I'd say no: I did, the fact that you read the output before I did is irrelevant.

I'd also, along similar lines, say that Cooper discovered it, though Aaron was the first to know about it.

On the other hand, let's say some data (maybe not even apparently related to Mersenne primes) was calculated and released ten years ago by person A. Then some mathematician, person B comes along and shows that the data shows that a previously-unknown number is a Mersenne prime. So did A or B discover it? I'd say B did, the fact that A provided the data is irrelevant (very helpful in its own right, but it doesn't mean A discovered the prime).

How can I realistically justify the difference? [URL="https://medium.com/@kmikeym/is-this-a-sandwich-50b1317eb3f5#.c3o7wt6q9"]Not sure I can.[/URL] :smile:

[QUOTE=petrw1;423100]Has there been a surge in new LL assignments / new users?[/QUOTE]

We'll know by the end of day how it compares...

Just a cursory look does show that today has seen a larger than normal # of new accounts so far, but I don't have a good enough grasp on the historical norms.

In other words: maybe. :smile: I'm doing a little analysis now and looking back at Feb 2013 when the last prime was announced. If we go by that, we *should* see some significant bumps in new accounts over the next few days and tapering off to normal after ~ 2 weeks.

Web traffic to the press release page has certainly been spiking through the day, as well as visits to the download page to a lesser degree.

[QUOTE=robert44444uk;423070]The list of primes with 65 as smallest positive primitive root appears in the exponent

[url]https://oeis.org/A114680[/url]

Important? Not! It is the first such value this is true.

Congrats to all involved in finding this though.[/QUOTE]

65 is the highest value of the "smallest positive primitive root" in the list of the Mersenne Prime exponents, below that there are:
p=23209: 31
p=132049: 26
p=25964951: 19
p=756839: 13
p=42643801: 11
p=216091: 10
p=20996011: 10

and the rest have 2,3,5 or 7.

Reddit thread: [url]https://www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/41ori2/49th_mersenne_prime_found_m74207281[/url]

[QUOTE=Mini-Geek;423101]Let's say I find a new Mersenne prime during the night, and while the email goes out as planned, I don't see it (or other notifications, like the "make a noise" feature or just reading the output myself) for a few hours. In the mean time, you are the first to read the email. So did you discover it? I'd say no: I did, the fact that you read the output before I did is irrelevant.[/QUOTE]Suppose a user sets their PC running a test, but then dies before it finishes. After some time (a day, a week?) the PC finishes the test finding a prime. An email is auto-sent out and George reads it. Who discovered the prime? Can you discover something posthumously?

Now suppose instead that the computer was shut down before completing the test when the body is discovered, but then someone later turned it on again and it proceeded to finish the test. Now who discovered the prime?

Now suppose that there's a family on the train tracks, and the only way to stop the train from hitting them is to discover a mersenne prime...