mersenne.org repeatedly down

[10metreh]

Over the last few days, I've noticed that mersenne.org has often been down, but never for a long period of time. Does anyone know what is going on?

[ixfd64]

It's working normally right now. It's possible that the server problems were caused by high traffic following the discovery of M47.

[10metreh]

Originally Posted by ixfd64

It's working normally right now. It's possible that the server problems were caused by high traffic following the discovery of M47.

Isn't "M46" its official name?

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by 10metreh

Isn't "M46" its official name?

Who sets 'official'? Where is IUPAC when you need them, or IAU, or L'Académie française, or Stofnun Árna Magnússonar í íslenskum fræðum (they make the french look like a bunch of pikers)? I would say that it is the 47th M number found. Why not call it M47 then?

[retina]

Originally Posted by 10metreh

Isn't "M46" its official name?

And what happens if another smaller prime is found? Do we keep "officially" renaming it?

And just who is the "official" that named it that?

[10metreh]

Originally Posted by retina

And what happens if another smaller prime is found? Do we keep "officially" renaming it?

And just who is the "official" that named it that?

The reason I'm calling it M46 is because M43112609 was the 45th Mersenne discovered, but it was often referred to as M46 because it was the 46th in size order.

[retina]

Originally Posted by 10metreh

The reason I'm calling it M46 is because M43112609 was the 45th Mersenne discovered, but it was often referred to as M46 because it was the 46th in size order.

Yeah, I know. But I'm just giving ya a little bit of stick, I thought you could take it, I guess I was mistaken. Nevermind, relax, pedantry seems to be a hobby for many here, so I imagine you will encounter more of the same from others in the future.

Better put on your full body armour, all those sticks poking you will start to hurt after a while.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by 10metreh

Isn't "M46" its official name?

If one uses the M47 shorthand for the 47^th Mersenne prime, it can refer to its rank by size and it is liable to change as happened recently or it can refer to its discovery date which would make 2¹²⁷-1 M9 instead of M12 and 2¹¹⁰⁵⁰³-1 M31 instead of M29.

The "Official" website counts Mersenne by order of size not by discovery date :

# Countdown to proving M(20996011) is the 40th Mersenne Prime: 851
# Countdown to proving M(24036583) is the 41st Mersenne Prime: 46,326
# Countdown to proving M(25964951) is the 42nd Mersenne Prime: 87,299
# Countdown to proving M(30402457) is the 43rd Mersenne Prime: 181,532
# Countdown to proving M(32582657) is the 44th Mersenne Prime: 227,745
# Countdown to proving M(37156667) is the 45th Mersenne Prime: 322,211
# Countdown to proving M(42643801) is the 46th Mersenne Prime: 438,236
# Countdown to proving M(43112609) is the 47th Mersenne Prime: 448,404

The page about the Mersenne primes on The Prime Pages follow that rule as well

We put question marks instead of a number for the the last of the Mersenne primes because it will not be known if there are other Mersenne's in between these until a check and double check has been completed by GIMPS. See the GIMPS Status Page for more information. Not all smaller exponents have been tested.

Jacob

[Mini-Geek]

If you wanted to make it clear which you mean, you could denote "the 46th largest Mersenne prime as of right now". e.g. say something like "M46 as of 2009-06-14 11:03:38 GMT" or with Unix time so it's a bit shorter: "M46-1244977418". But that's all longer and a lot harder to deal with than just saying M42643801.
...or, in any dated statement, like posts on this forum, you can just say M46 and people can look at your time and figure out themselves which number you're referring to.

[davieddy]

Originally Posted by S485122

If one uses the M47 shorthand for the 47^th Mersenne prime, it can refer to its rank by size and it is liable to change as happened recently or it can refer to its discovery date which would make 2¹²⁷-1 M9 instead of M12 and 2¹¹⁰⁵⁰³-1 M31 instead of M29.

See also the paragraph on Hurwitz' discovery of M19 and M20 in 1961.
http://primes.utm.edu/notes/by_year.html#2

Caldwell takes the view that he discovered M(4423) before M(4253)
because he saw the output for M(4423) first.
So Lycorn or Kevin discovered M(42643801) first?

David

PS At least we all understand what "Predict M48" means.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by davieddy

See also the paragraph on Hurwitz' discovery of M19 and M20 in 1961.
http://primes.utm.edu/notes/by_year.html#2

Caldwell takes the view that he discovered M(4423) before M(4253)
because he saw the output for M(4423) first.
So Lycorn or Kevin discovered M(42643801) first?

David

It's a bit like this: stigmv uncovered a diamond (i.e. Mersenne prime) in a big field (i.e. the many possible candidates) and both he and the automated diamond-searcher (i.e. the email system to George) didn't notice it, and eventually Lycorn noticed it.

I'd think that some amount of credit should go to each of them. But then wouldn't that mean that in a normal situation George or Scott should get credit for the discovery of a Mersenne prime if they happen to see the e-mail before anyone else? Likewise, if it was automatically posted to a very visible location the web site, (like a new article on the front page) would the first person that happens to see it be the discoverer?

To relate it to the Hurwitz situation: if a janitor had happened to read "M4253 is prime!" (or whatever the output was, and assuming that he could understand the output) before Hurwitz saw "M4423 is prime!" would M4253 be "discovered" before M4423? If so, shouldn't the "discoverer" be the janitor, even though he wasn't the one that actually wrote the program or set the computer to run it, or anything?

If a prime falls in the woods but nobody's around to hear it, does it make a sound? er...Say a computer running Prime95 finds a prime with the owner watching, so he knows right away, but before either the computer or the owner can communicate that to anyone/anything (e.g. PrimeNet), something happens (flaming meteor crashes through the window?) and the owner is killed and the hard drive disk containing this information is in a very bad shape. Say it can still be read by a professional data recovery crew, (hey, they recovered Space Shuttle Columbia's data) and they find "Mxxx IS A NEW MERSENNE PRIME!!!" in the Prime95 log files. Who is the discoverer?

Originally Posted by davieddy

PS At least we all understand what "Predict M48" means.

What if you think the 48th Mersenne prime to be discovered will be smaller than M43112609? Then we don't exactly all agree.