At 06:07 PM 10/20/99 -0400, Darxus wrote:
>Okay, so I got my line of log base 2 of the exponents of the 1st 37
>mersenne primes. I took those numbers & did a linear extrapolation, and
>did a 2^n to the resulting extrapolated numbers.
>
>I then went back and did my exponential extrapolation to the exponents of
>the 1st 37 primes.
>
>
>I was pretty surprised that the extrapolations for M38-M42 (all that I
>did) were *exactly* the same for both methods of extrapolations,
Your two methods are equivalent.
> I still wanna know why extrapolating off of the number of digits, instead
>of the actual exponents, gave me a number closer to 6972593 (38th
>discovered mersenne prime). I dunno, coulda just been a coincidence.
Probably so. If you use the number of digits in one method and the actual
exponents in another, the predictions will differ slightly. One of them
will be closer to the true value.
+---------------------------------------------------------+
| Jud McCranie |
| |
| Programming Achieved with Structure, Clarity, And Logic |
+---------------------------------------------------------+
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