At 04:38 AM 10/15/98 -0700, Alan Simpson wrote:
>A friend of mine is a computational number theorist and she knows some
>NSA-types quite well. She told me that they (I'm not sure who "they" is)
>have been doing some work on Mersenne primes. She is often telling me
>that they are so much more advanced than the "outside world" in
>basically every field of computational number theory (among other
>subjects).
>
>She told me that they have made some vague statements to her about how
>they (this "they" again) have found (at least) two new Mersenne primes.
>The exponent of one of them is supposed to be around 5,200,000 while the
>other one is around 18,000,000.
>
>Does anyone else know anything about this?
>
I don't know anything about it, but it could be true. I've been told that
computer technology in the military is about 5 years ahead of what is
commercially available. Anyhow, GIMPS will get to exponents around 5,200,000
before too long, and that will help confirm or deny it.
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Jud McCranie [EMAIL PROTECTED] or @camcat.com |
| |
| "We should regard the digital computer system as an |
| instrument to assist the number theorist in investigating |
| the properties of his universe - the natural numbers." |
| -- D. H. Lehmer, 1974 (paraphrased) |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
