New method of finding large prime numbers

[storm5510]

I do not like asking anything for myself. I would much rather crash-and-burn. If it is for someone else, then the asking is easy.

I go to the Wikipedia pages several times a week and spend probably an hour there each time. As I said, if what I see is in mathematical notation, then it sails over my head. However, if it is in an algorithmic form, then I can follow it, sometimes. It depends on how well the page author documents the examples.

[only_human]

Originally Posted by storm5510

I do not like asking anything for myself. I would much rather crash-and-burn. If it is for someone else, then the asking is easy.

I go to the Wikipedia pages several times a week and spend probably an hour there each time. As I said, if what I see is in mathematical notation, then it sails over my head. However, if it is in an algorithmic form, then I can follow it, sometimes. It depends on how well the page author documents the examples.

I don't like asking directly for information and certain forms of presentation are more problematic for me also. If you look at my messages you will see that I tend focus on concrete bread crumbs while avoiding that abstract generalizations that would be much more sweepingly useful.

One approach that is useful is to remember that for every person who speaks on the forum there are others too that might be interested in the questions you have and answers too. So if you can arrange things to be clear and possibly useful to others too, it can feel a little less imposing and be more rewarding to all participants. So an almost verbotten question would be request for a specific answer to a specific textbook homework problem. A much better presentation would be some description of what you have looked at and where you tried get a grip on it and say what is not clear. I am certain you will get a pleasant response. For example, most mathematical explanations of the LL routine are not at all clear to me why it works. The explanations use obvious tools of proof but don't give me insight into why it works. So if I were looking at that and trying to follow a particular proof but wanted to understand better, there would be a good chance that others would benefit from seeing the part where I was stuck being worked through. I would bet money that a good thread could be had on that topic with lots of contributors and interesting dialog.

Here is a more algorithmic example that happens to be true that I now present as a way of asking:

Although binary can be converted into Grey Code like this:

x ^= x>>1;

Converting it from Grey Code back to ordinary binary coding is usually done a bit at a time or with a massive number of gates working in parallel or with table look-up (and the obvious limits of table size). Some years back, while playing around I realized that there there is a simple quadratic algorithm (each step does twice as many bits as the previous step). Converting from Gray Code back to binary is as simple as this:

x ^= x>>1;
x ^= x>>2;
x ^= x>>4;
x ^= x>>8;
x ^= x>>16;
. . . etc. 32 bits converted so far here

For a while I was worried that I hadn't ever seen this in print and felt that if it was better known, more uses for Gray Code would find practical applications. One day I came across a book of algorithms that was a work in progress and not published yet and I felt much better when I found this algorithm in the book. The writer had a downloadable copy available and I downloaded and skimmed it. It had a treasure trove of algorithms in it; tons of different math and data coding algorithms. My hard drive that had a copy long ago died and also got misplaced.

Does anyone have a suggestion what book it might have been?

No book that I have looked at in recent years resembles what I faintly remember. I don't recall it being fixated on a particular computer language. I remember that the chapter(s?) on different encodings had lots of them; many more than I knew existed.

So as you can see the question I presented is a bit awkward but I present the background as best I can about why it matters to me and I also mention a possibly useful algorithm (albeit incredibly simple) that I feel is still not in general use.

[davar55]

The title of this thread is currently intrigueing, but once again
arriving in the middle I ask for guidance to the core.

What's up, docs?

[Damian]

Originally Posted by davar55

The title of this thread is currently intrigueing, but once again
arriving in the middle I ask for guidance to the core.

What's up, docs?

Someone said that found a faster primality test than the currently used for mersenne numbers and was going to win much money, then Silverman replied "politely" (as usual), then someone else got offended by Silverman reply style, and here we are. Welcome.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by storm5510

I don't understand why the rest of you put up with him. I know what the "ignore" list is, and where it is.

I've asked questions in the past. Most of the time, I never got a straight answer. So, I go to Wikipedia and try to learn things there. It's hard because I do not understand the notation, but I try.

Do you also suspect that RDS is a total fraud?

[wblipp]

Originally Posted by davar55

Do you also suspect that RDS is a total fraud?

In what sense? Are you suggesting that RDS is really a sympathetic, friendly, jovial, happy-go-lucky person who hides behind a curmudgeonly online persona? There are a few people here that have met him in the flesh - if so, they are keeping his secret.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by wblipp

In what sense? Are you suggesting that RDS is really a sympathetic, friendly, jovial, happy-go-lucky person who hides behind a curmudgeonly online persona? There are a few people here that have met him in the flesh - if so, they are keeping his secret.

Curmudgeonly? I wasn't referring to his online personality,
but to his actual math and teaching skills, which I've found
totally lacking in all of his posts in the mersenne forum in the
four years I've been attentive.

Call me suspicious, but insults, evasions, verbal assaults, etc,
are indicative of someone with something to hide.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by davar55

but to his actual math <snip> skills, which I've found totally lacking in all of his posts in the mersenne forum in the four years I've been attentive.

If you've found Silverman's math skills to be "totally lacking" in all of his posts, then you must not really know much about math. His math is excellent. Are you getting distracted by the non-math portions of his posts?

[davar55]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

If you've found Silverman's math skills to be "totally lacking" in all of his posts, then you must not really know much about math. His math is excellent. Are you getting distracted by the non-math portions of his posts?

You may be right, I may be creatively exaggerating.

He has brought Sylow Theorems and idoneal numbers to our attention.

His demeanor may be coloring my response to his math contributions.