Will GIMPS Ever Discover Two Primes Out of Sequence?

[jinydu]

Just curious what you think. Will GIMPS ever discover one prime, and then later discover another one smaller than the first?

[drew]

Originally Posted by jinydu

Just curious what you think. Will GIMPS ever discover one prime, and then later discover another one smaller than the first?

Sure, eventually.

It looks like it's time to change your profile.

[Primeinator]

I think it will happen eventually as well.

[cheesehead]

I, too, think jinydu will eventually change his profile.

(Will Primeinator? -- I don't know. )

[jinydu]

22 out of 31 users guessed correctly.

[uigrad]

Originally Posted by jinydu

22 out of 31 users guessed correctly.

Another question that could have been asked would be:


Someday GIMPS will find a new prime that is lower than the current maximum mersenne prime, thus changing the order.
How long will it take before this smaller prime is found, thus correcting the order?

a) 14 days or less
b) 15 days - 6 months
c) 6 months - 2 years
d) 2 years - 5 years
e) longer than 5 years

[Primeinator]

Someday GIMPS will find a new prime that is lower than the current maximum mersenne prime, thus changing the order.
How long will it take before this smaller prime is found, thus correcting the order?

a) 14 days or less
b) 15 days - 6 months
c) 6 months - 2 years
d) 2 years - 5 years
e) longer than 5 years

I guess two to three years, if there is a smaller one to be found.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by uigrad

Another question that could have been asked would be:
How long will it take before this smaller prime is found, thus correcting the order?

a) 14 days or less
b) 15 days - 6 months
c) 6 months - 2 years
d) 2 years - 5 years
e) longer than 5 years

Make your own poll.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by uigrad

Someday GIMPS will find a new prime that is lower than the current maximum mersenne prime, thus changing the order.
How long will it take before this smaller prime is found, thus correcting the order?

Also, clarify:

(1) what is meant by "current maximum mersenne prime" -- the current M46 (so that you mean today's M46 will become M47), or whatever is the largest at the time the next out-of-order prime is found?

and

(2) what is meant by "How long will it take before this smaller prime is found" -- the time interval from today, September 17, 2008, or the time interval between the discovery of the then-largest prime and the discovery of a smaller one?

Suppose we find M47 = 55xxxxxx, then later M48 = 66xxxxxx, then another Mersenne prime at exponent 54xxxxxx. Is it to be the time interval between the discoveries of 55xxxxxx and 54xxxxxx, or the one between discoveries of 66xxxxxx and 54xxxxxx, or the one between today and discovery of 54xxxxxx?

[uigrad]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Also, clarify:

(1) what is meant by "current maximum mersenne prime"
(2) what is meant by "How long will it take before this smaller prime is found"

(1) I meant the first prime found that is larger than the "prime in the gap". As it turned out, that would have been M(Aug)
(2) Time from the first prime that was found above the gap (ie out of order) until all primes in the gaps are found.


I guess we could still vote, since we don't know if there are more primes in the gap, but I think that most people now would vote a).
Even if someone thinks that there is a greater than 50% chance that another prime hides between M39 and M46, they might not want to guess between the b-e choices, so that person may just pick a).

It's still remarkable to me that we had two found so close to each other, and that it happened with 2 primes that are of prize-qualifying size.
I was just trying to present that in a different way.

[Uncwilly]

deja vu