It's announced on the Seventeen or Bust Homepage that 28433 * 2^7830457 + 1 is prime and was found on December 30th.
Originally posted by: miketheidiot
glad to know that at least 1 DC program is doing something. :thumbsup:
Finding a prime is doing something, like finding a matching code to crack an encrypted test phrase. While the implication of the first comment that no other DC projects do anything is inflamatory, I wouldn't recommend fanning the flames.Originally posted by: malak
I'm sorry, how is finding a prime doing anything?Originally posted by: miketheidiot
glad to know that at least 1 DC program is doing something. :thumbsup:
Originally posted by: ProviaFan
Finding a prime is doing something, like finding a matching code to crack an encrypted test phrase. While the implication of the first comment that no other DC projects do anything is inflamatory, I wouldn't recommend fanning the flames.Originally posted by: malak
I'm sorry, how is finding a prime doing anything?Originally posted by: miketheidiot
glad to know that at least 1 DC program is doing something. :thumbsup:
Anyway, congrats to whomever found the prime. Reading about advances in these specialized branches of mathematics always intrigues me, even though I have a hard enough time with the basic calculus that we get in high school.
Edit for clarification
Originally posted by: Chipster22
It's announced on the Seventeen or Bust Homepage that 28433 * 2^7830457 + 1 is prime and was found on December 30th.
It's proving a mathematial theorem. If someone wants to do this rather than something else, that's fine with me; I don't believe that we should pass judgement on what projects others choose. However, if someone's doing RC5-72 (talk about an exercise in futility!)...Originally posted by: malak
Still didn't answer my question. Other projects seem to help finding cures to diseases. How is finding a prime helping anything?
Ever bought something online? How do you think your credit card number was kept safe from haxors?Originally posted by: malak
Still didn't answer my question. Other projects seem to help finding cures to diseases. How is finding a prime helping anything?
Originally posted by: kamper
Ever bought something online? How do you think your credit card number was kept safe from haxors?Originally posted by: malak
Still didn't answer my question. Other projects seem to help finding cures to diseases. How is finding a prime helping anything?
Online security is doing fine now because alot of people worked hard on the mathematical theory a long time ago. I think that a certain amount of "useless" science is a necessity because it drives the more useful applications in the future, even if we can't always tell what they will be. In this case I think we can guess what the use will be: as our algorithms grow smarter and our computers more powerful we will need a continually expanding knowledge of numbers to keep the encryption ahead of the decryption.Originally posted by: malak
Originally posted by: kamper
Ever bought something online? How do you think your credit card number was kept safe from haxors?Originally posted by: malak
Still didn't answer my question. Other projects seem to help finding cures to diseases. How is finding a prime helping anything?
And that's what I wanted to know, the point to finding a prime. If that's really the point, then I suppose it's not bad. Although seems like people are doing fine right now with online purchasing...
What Is It?
SB (Seventeen or Bust) is a distributed attack on the Sierpinski problem. Our system utilizes the spare computational power of hundreds of computers around the world, creating a powerful network of machines working together on the problem. Anyone can participate: we provide a piece of software that installs on your computer and uses its "spare time" to help our project. You won't even notice it's running, since it only uses your processor if it would otherwise be sitting unused.
The Sierpinski problem itself deals with numbers of the form N = k * 2^n + 1, for any odd k and n > 1. Numbers of this form are called Proth numbers. If, for some specific value of k, every possible choice of n results in a composite (non-prime) Proth number N, then that k is called a Sierpinski number. The Sierpinski problem itself is: "What is the smallest Sierpinski number?" (For a more rigorous mathematical discussion of the problem, see prothsearch.net's Sierpinski Problem page.)
John Selfridge proved, 40 years ago, that k = 78,557 is a Sierpinski number. Most number theorists believe that this is the smallest, but it hasn't yet been proven. In order to prove it, we have to show that every single k less than 78,557 is not a Sierpinski number, and to do that, we have to find some n that makes k * 2^n + 1 prime. When Seventeen or Bust was started, this had already been done for all but 17 values of k; hence the name of the project. After 20 months of computation, we have eliminated 7 multipliers: seven down, ten to go.
'In the end, we all do what we do in relation to our own set of values and what's most important for us. As others have said, I think it is impossible to justify one project over all the others, because there are just to many unknowns involved. In the end, it's not about justifying your project of choice to others. It just about how you justify it to yourself. And there are many ways you can do that.'