Ok, Ok, Ok... I know little of numbers and statistics so I post this here on DKOS in honor of those who do. I also appreciate adventure and those who take on a challenge whatever it might be.
UCLA mathematicians appear to have won a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for discovering a 13-million-digit prime number that has long been sought by computer users.
While the prize money is nothing special, the bragging rights for discovering the 46th known Mersenne prime are huge.
So I am smiling knowing a few here who do bring us polls, statistics and their magical graphs will smile as well in reading this small bit of information.
"We're delighted," said UCLA's Edson Smith, leader of the effort. "Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds," which are thought to be about one in 150,000 that any number tested will be a Mersenne prime.
Prime numbers are those, like three, seven and 11, that are divisible only by themselves and one. Mersenne primes, named after the 17th century French mathematician Marin Mersenne, who discovered them, take the form 2P - 1, where P is also a prime number.
In the new UCLA prime, 2^P - 1 = 43,112,609.
No, I don't have a clue. But, I do know there are many who are thrilled. I can identify with what they must be feeling as my own life has been one of adventure and taking calculated risk. The rewards are often so personal it's difficult to share with those who have not taken the same journey.
Smith and his UCLA colleagues have, since last fall, harnessed the power of the 75 machines in the university's Program in Computing/Math Computer Lab, which is used by students for computer projects. Smith, a system administrator, realized that the lab was using only a fraction of its available CPU power. Rather than let it go to waste, he and his colleagues decided to use it for the GIMPS project.
LA Times
It's not earth shaking, it's not analyzing a debate, it won't lessen our monetary crisis, but it brought a smile to my face.
But there is a similarity to DKOS and this discovery. A community, a web community, made a discovery and worked in consort to find a result. Impressive.
To all those who struggle with and delight in numbers, statistics... Well done!