[QUOTE=ixfd64]Argh, stupid typo. :blush: I meant to type 26 - I don't know why I typed 29 instead. :\[/QUOTE]Sounds like typical reporting in the media to me. That is, almost invariably buggy but the bugs are mostly either typos or trivial misphrasings and you can work out what was meant. On the other hand, some are much, much worse.

You should have seen the report about the RSA-129 factorization printed in the [i]Daily Telegraph[/i]. It was so wrong it was hilarious.


Paul

[QUOTE=ixfd64]Argh, stupid typo. :blush: I meant to type 26 - I don't know why I typed 29 instead. :\[/QUOTE]

I mailed Carlos and his reply indicates the '29' problem is real :grin:

I mean, what if the unpublished 'algorithm' is in fact an artificial intelligence those two scientists created by mistake?

And now that damn thing is factoring huge numbers without a glitch like there is no tomorrow but [I]insists[/I] that 29 factors into 13 and 2 [I]and[/I] that humankind is just too ignorant to understand this.

Add to this the fact that said AI assures everyone that it's able to chat with the the now 'defunct' Mr. Riemann ("Hey Bernhard, they still did not get your ancient RH-joke") and that it refuses to work at all without a constant input steam of digitized John Wayne movies. What a mess.

It's pretty clear to me why they keep the lid on the algorithm :)

Tau

Maybe the computation wasn't quite finished yet. Let's just hope the computer isn't blown up to make room for a highway.

Alex

Alex, you've got it!

[quote=TauCeti]I mean, what if the unpublished 'algorithm' is in fact an artificial intelligence those two scientists created by mistake?

And now that damn thing is factoring huge numbers without a glitch like there is no tomorrow but [I]insists[/I] that 29 factors into 13 and 2 [I]and[/I] that humankind is just too ignorant to understand this.[/quote]

Note that 13 * 3 = 39 (a factorization of which I've always been fond). What if the AI is still experimenting with induction, mixed-base systems, and whatnot, and after contemplating 13 * 3 = 39 decided to try 13 * [B]2[/B] = [B]2[/B]9 ("thinking" that there needs to be a [b]2[/b] in there somewhere).

[quote=akruppa]Maybe the computation wasn't quite finished yet[/quote]
Indeed!

It's about to discover 29 + 13 = [B]42 -- the answer to everything![/B] Clearly, Stephenson's and Carlos's AI is on the track of something far more important than mere integer factorization !!!

[quote=akruppa]Let's just hope the computer isn't blown up to make room for a highway.[/quote]
[I][quote=ixfd64]Other (maybe write your own?)[/quote][/I]Folks,

[B][URL="http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=4837"]"The End Is Near!"[/URL][/B]


[quote=TauCeti]It's pretty clear to me why they keep the lid on the algorithm :)[/quote]

Riemann
 

For those interested by what will happen in 20 years, a famous newpaper in France thinks that the Riemann conjecture will be solved in 2025 by an Indian Mathematician : Mani Sikdar, from Bangalore.
[URL="http://www.lexpress.fr/info/societe/dossier/2025/dossier.asp?ida=436419"]Riemann solved ![/URL] (in French !).
Based on the book of Marcus du Sautoy.
(The whole paper is an anticipation of our world in 20 years from now).

So you have your answer ! [B][COLOR="Red"]RH[/COLOR][/B]

Tony

[QUOTE=R.D. Silverman]I am not back. I will not participate in any technical discussions.
[/QUOTE]

I hope you will consider making exceptions in the NFSNET subforum.

[QUOTE=T.Rex]
So you have your answer ! [B][COLOR="Red"]RH[/COLOR][/B]
Tony[/QUOTE]

I took "other" because "High school student disproves Riemann Hypothesis" was not available.

A disproof of the RH would be far more interesting :smile:

I personally believe that the RH is false but the first counterexample will involve very huge numbers. My reasoning is philosophical and involves the possibility that prime number spacings somehow encode the [I]finite[/I] information of our universe as a whole. Under that base assumption, with an infinite number of prime spacings and finite information to code, the RH-imposed 'order' on prime number distribution will only hold up to a certain value.

Err - i better stop here, got a 'crank warning' for the last paragraph :redface:

Tau

My vote is "other". My favourite news would be "Worldwide peace makes military obsolete"

[QUOTE=akruppa] and lifetime supply of free ponies for all[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry but I just have to ask. What would anyone do with a load of ponies?

I assume you're talkling about 4-legged animals that eat hay and oats and, for some reason I've never managed to fathom, make young girls go weak at the knees?

[quote=Numbers]I'm sorry but I just have to ask. What would anyone do with a load of ponies?[/quote]

Do be stereotypic and mean:

At least in France, one could leave away the "world hunger problem solved" part now, as it's redundant. :devil:

Time to write another one!

[b]August 26, 2007[/b]

[i]Intel unveils 1-TFLOP 'Infinity' processor[/i]

Following the recent breakthroughs in superconductor technology, Intel has developed a 1-TFLOP (1 trillion floating-point operations per second) double-precision processor. Previously, the 8 GHz P5 processors topped out at 32 GFLOP/s (0.032 TFLOP/s). This change will revolutionize the computing world. Earle Ady, the founder of distributed.net, a distributed computing project dedicated to solving computational problems that require many steps, said "This will greatly benefit the scientific community."

Intel said in a report that it will be available at around Q1 2008. Prices will start at about $25,000 USD per unit, but may drop as other firms advance their technologies.