On 20 Jul 99, at 0:26, Luke Welsh wrote:
> That would be me. But I don't like the money because I think it
> opens a can of worms. ('can of worms' -- what do you say in
> Russian or Japanese or Flemish?) I happen to like money (you
> can buy beer with it and cover green fees).
>
> Primenet is a lot more powerful than just managing exponents
> for GIMPS. And e-cash is in the near future. Eventually,
> PrimeNet should be able to move small (and large) amounts
> of money around the world with ease.
>
Unfortunately, e-cash opens several other cans of worms!
BTW I agree with your general sentiments, but you seem to be glossing
over some of the details. e.g. what happens if the winner comes from
an "unfriendly" country? Can we transfer e-cash to a citizen of,
e.g., Iraq, and could that citizen convert it into goods even if
(s)he receives it?
>
> We really do need a formula for [e]. Set aside $25,000 and each
> x% improvement in GIMPS throughput wins x% of the $25,000? (what
> do we do if there are multiple improvements?)
What's wrong with having a panel (possibly consisting of previous
Mersenne prime discoverers) to evaluate any contenders for this &
judge how much, if any, of the fund should be awarded for each
improvement? Some will definitely be more valuable than others...
and, if there's money left because not all was awarded, then it can
be held over, given to charity, distributed pro-rata for CPU cycles
contributed, or whatever.
>
> Award $10,ooo for each new Mp, regardless of size. Suppose M(7777777)
> is prime. The finder is credited $10,ooo (to be awarded when GIMPS
> finds a decamega prime). The decamega finder also gets $10,ooo.
[Nah, 7777777 is not prime (it's divisible by 7), therefore
2^7777777-1 definitely isn't prime either.]
This would seem to be a bit unfair. I think the decamega finder
should definitely get a large share (25% minimum). The point here is
that, if I can freely download a program & use it to check Mersenne
numbers in the 10 million digit range, why should I bother to
contribute to a cooperative project if, by doing so, I'm going to
have to give up almost all the prize if I get lucky? The fact that
even poor people are prepared to throw a few dollars at the remote
chance of a lottery jackpot would tend to indicate that a few dollars
recompense for CPU cycles contributed to a cooperative project will
not attract contributors in the way that a large cash prize will.
I'd prefer to keep a slice (smaller than the discoverer's slice) for
discoverers of non-qualifying Mersenne primes, but don't pay anything
out until the range up to 10 million digits is (more or less)
completely searched. Then divide it equally between them. Carry the
sum forward if it happens that we discover that we already know all
the Mersenne primes with less than 10 million digits.
>
> Is $10,ooo about right? I've lived in different countries, and I
> lived around the USA. In Silicon Valley, $10K will barely pay 6 months
> rent, but in Leblon I could live quite nicely (qual e', malandro? :-)
> For the near future, $10,ooo should cover the cost of a *nice* PC,
> with money to spare.
I reckon $10K would buy a small collection of *nice* PCs, however...
Also, those people paying $20K pa rent in Silicon Valley presumably
do so because they're getting paid proportionately bigger salaries
than most of us. Conversely, in some parts of the world, $10K is
several times a good salary ... if we try to link the amount of the
prize to income, then how much would we have to pay Bill Gates if he
won it? (And he probably could, quite easily, if he turned half his
wealth into PCs running Prime95)
>
> Another thought..... we cannot allow people to started hoarding
> their residues in hopes of being paid tomorrow for today's computations.
> Perhaps this should be made retro-active --- pick a date -- retro-
> active to the date/time when Nayan's machine reported M38?
>
I reckon, by the time that the division of the hypothetical $100K
into chunks is done, it's very unlikely that anyone is going to
deprive themselves of much more than a few cents income by hoarding
residues, so I can't see this as a serious problem. Nevertheless I
think the suggestion makes sense.
Regards
Brian Beesley
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