On Wed, Sep 15, 1999 at 07:42:53PM +0100, Brian J. Beesley wrote:
> I'm going to be _very_ interested in how many people choose to run
> $100,000 prize candidates using v19. There is an obvious balance
> between the time it takes to complete a test & the enthusiasm of
> people to participate, even if there is a substantial cash prize
> riding on it.
If one had the data then it would be reasonably easy to calculate the
expectation (in $ per year) for a given exponent size & CPU. You'd
need to know the iteration time for any given exponent for that CPU
and the probably distribution of mersenne primes at that exponent
size. Unfortunately I don't know these otherwise I would have worked
it out ;-)
(Digression: Though expectation is a useful statistical measure - in
real life where there are very small probablilities involved
multiplied by very large amounts the results are not useful
practically. Eg the UK lottery - for your 1 pound stake your
expectation is 50p. Better to go to the bookies where for your pound
you get an expectation of 95p...)
--
Nick Craig-Wood
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.axis.demon.co.uk/
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