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Kevin Marois wrote: It seems that I wouldn't be that difficult to write a rather small app that can compute this to infinity.
Something like this?
while (i <= infinity)
{
}
Don't wait for it to finish. 
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Message Removed
modified 21-Jan-16 16:09pm.
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Xaotiq wrote: MY GAWD that is huge!
A quick back of an envelope approximation suggests that it would take around a GB just to store the number let alone do any math with it.
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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Um... Why?
I'm pretty sure I could store it in 22Mb pretty easily, or 11Mb if I used BCD.
As a binary number, it would go under 10Mb easily.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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OriginalGriff wrote: As a binary number, it would go under 10Mb easily.
Yup, you're right. I'd blame drunk arithmetic but I hadn't touched a drop, honest, guv. I just can't get used to this decimal money!
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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What's misleading? Discovery, is by definition, revealing things that are already there - literally taking away the cover from something. If the headline said 'invented' or 'created', fair enough, but it doesn't.
You also don't seem to have any grasp of the meaning of infinite. There are an infinite number of prime numbers which means no matter how fast your computer calculates (assuming that it can get past the problems of accurately calculating extremely large numbers at all), even trillions of times faster than our fastest super-computer arrays, it will take an infinite time to calculate.
If you wrote your app and transported it back in time to the very first second of the Universe's existence to start it there is every possibility that it would still be trailing in the race with the software in use to confirm the present record. For it is only possible to have reached the biggest prime to date by abandoning the search for all primes and checking only for Mersenne primes (for which there are only 74,207,281 candidates up to and including the present biggest as opposed to the 22.4 million digit number of candidates needing to be checked in the complete scan).
I am not a number. I am a ... no, wait!
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Kevin Marois wrote: It seems that I wouldn't be that difficult to write a rather small app that can compute this to infinity.
Absolutely. The problem is, how long it'll take that app to run and how much memory it would need. Computing prime numbers is a great illustration of the balance between time, space, and algorithm.
Marc
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See also: Halting Problem.
Turing has been working on it for decades now.
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: Turing has been working on it for decades now.
I'm pretty sure that's no longer the case.
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Sure, now that he has infinite time to do so.
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Kevin Marois wrote: The title seems a bit misleading
In what way misleading? A very large number has been determined to be prime, thus discovering the largest prime number to date. The title accurately describes the article.
Kevin Marois wrote: It seems that I wouldn't be that difficult to write a rather small app that can compute this to infinity.
I don't think you truly appreciate the scale or difficulty of the problem here. The number itself is over 22 million digits in length. Just let that sink in. In the .NET number type system a double is an 8 byte floating point number with an accuracy of 15 to 16 decimal places. The number described here is 22 million digits.
The algorithms for calculating prime are notoriously resource intensive. In fact one of the first applications of quantum computers is this very problem - determining prime.
If you truly think it a trivial problem, then go right ahead and see how far you get. Knock yourself out.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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Dominic Burford wrote: If you truly think it a trivial problem, then go right ahead and see how far you get. Knock yourself out.
Years ago I gave this a go and as I watched the console output slow down after an hour, with a still quite small number, I realised why it is that finding new prime numbers is so difficult.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I too have written some very basic algorithms for finding prime numbers, and for any reasonably sized number, it takes an age to compute. To do this for a number of the size described here is a phenomenal achievement.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
Home | LinkedIn | Google+ | Twitter
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Kevin Marois wrote: It seems that I wouldn't be that difficult to write a rather small app that can compute this to infinity.
In which case you could make yourself millions as discovering new prime number is worth a lot of money 
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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Yeah, I look forward to reading that CP article.
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And Columbus also did not discover America, not only because the Vikings came earlier, but also because America has been there all along.
The language is JavaScript. that of Mordor, which I will not utter here
This is Javascript. If you put big wheels and a racing stripe on a golf cart, it's still a f***ing golf cart.
"I don't know, extraterrestrial?"
"You mean like from space?"
"No, from Canada."
If software development were a circus, we would all be the clowns.
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Quote: a number so humongous it's got more than 22 million digits, or almost 5 million digits larger than the previous record prime.
Just how big is this new prime number? To print it out in tiny type, it'd run more than 13.5 million miles long.
*sputter*
Since when did Digits half a mile wide become tiny type?
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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:laughs:
Oddly enough, I got the contents of this comment of yours in my inbox as a reply to the thread about the subliming CO₂
Whether it was a case of hamster mischief or pebkac, I was enriched twice. Thanks 
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Pebkak. CP doesn't have a recall email feature.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius
Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt
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When the first femtosecond laser pulses were reported I calculated the length of the pulse and noted it was on a scale less than 1/2 wavelenght (uncertainty broadening neglected). An explanation I heard that was reasonable was that it was simply a breakdown in the wave-nature description of light (there's also a particle nature).
For those of you who need a easy frame of reference:
Light travels 1 foot (30cm) in a nano-second (10^-9 = 1 billionth)Even in the mid 1970's I was able to resolve a split laser pulse that took two paths, one longer than the other.As shown in the video, due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, such a short pulse must have a very uncertain wavelenght (hence the rainbow) ΔtΔν > ℏ = hc/λ [edit] Note that Δν is proportional to ΔE, so equation is OK.[/edit]
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
modified 21-Jan-16 15:13pm.
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I also enjoyed the part where he explained the perspective between watching light in slow motion vs. watching the bullet through the apple in slow motion.
To watch the bullet go through the apple at the same frame rate as the light it would take about 1 year to see it.
It's amazing we can work with such incredibly small values.
There are only 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
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In the late 1980's I worked with laser range gating and intensified cameras (cameras with a photomultiplier between the lens and the CCD). At that time we were able to gate the intensifier on and off at around 5 nanoseconds, so we could adjust the depth of field down to about five feet. We could also range when the sensor was open to the reflected light. This allowed us to do some interesting things, such as see through sandstorms.
Marc
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