Hi all,
At the risk of opening Pandora's box, I'd like to bring
up the possibility of splitting up the $100,000 award for a 10 million
digit prime. I'm soliciting everyone's opinion before making a decision.
First off, it is by no means guaranteed that GIMPS will claim the
award. Some have speculated that a search for Proth primes would have a
better chance for success given equal computer power. Furthermore, version
19 will take over a year to test a single 10,000,000 digit number - so
claiming the award is years away. However, a policy needs to be in
place before version 19 is released.
Secondly, I suspect splitting the award will require setting up
a non-profit corporation. If I accept the award personally, I'd have to
pay taxes -- no thanks. If there is anyone with useful insights on
alternatives or how to set up and run a non-profit as cheaply as
possible, please send me a private email.
What follows is a possible list of beneficiaries along with a
few reasons for or against:
1) A charity. There are several GIMPSers that are against any
monetary awards. People should search for primes for love of math
not the love of money. However, an all charity award could defeat
the orinial donor's desire of encouraging advances in distributed
computing.
2) Me. Some would argue that I share some of the credit for any
Mersenne discoveries. Be aware that I will donate any share to charity.
3) Scott Kurowski. He has real expenses in running the PrimeNet server
that should be reimbursed and has been instrumental in GIMPS' growth.
4) The discoverers of any Mersenne primes between now and the 10,000,000
digit discovery. This will encourage an orderly exploration of the exponents
and keep up interest over the coming years.
5) The discoverer of the 10,000,000 digit prime.
6) Save some for Mersenne primes discovered after the 10,000,000 digit
prime. This would be especially useful if the prime is discovered
with lots of untested exponents below it.
7) Anyone that makes a mathematical or algorithmic breakthrough that
speeds up the search process. I'm talking about a doubling in search speed
not a 1% speedup in assembly code.
Suggested rules for discussion on the mailing list: If you'd like to
make a specific proposal (such as "all to charity" or "$50,000 for the
10,000,000 digit prime and $10,000 for all primes between now and then"),
then send me PRIVATE email. Hopefully, I can form a consensus from
these suggestions. Please use the mailing list for discussions on the
benefits and drawbacks of the different choices. I can easily
see this discussion getting out-of-hand with a corresponding increase
in mailing list removal requests!
Best regards,
George
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