Mersenne Digest Sunday, February 20 2000 Volume 01 : Number 696 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 16:06:22 +0100 From: Paul Landon <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: Neumann & Newman Re: computational history of the Mersenne primes Thanks for the smile, Ernst. J�nos von Neumann the Hungarian is different to the Max Newman (from London) who's father was German and called Neumann. Strange coincidence! http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Newman.html It is a remarkable event, that I hadn't realised before, that the first 2 (real) computers used Neumann and Von Neumann architectures! [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Many thanks to Paul Landon for the very informative and enjoyable > trilogy about the history of computer testing of Mersenne numbers! > > So Newman of Manchester was apparently the first - wait, I just got > an e-mail from someone with the handle [EMAIL PROTECTED] - > must work for some cryptography outfit. No, he goes on to explain that The German Neumann did indeed work for some cryptography outfit. The history linked to above says "From 1916 until 1919 he undertook work related to the war, doing various jobs such as army paymaster and schoolmaster." There is some data there significant by it's ommission - it is very vague. Most people in the military had precise ranks, positions and regiments and after the war are very well recorded. I guess being a Cryptographer and a German speaker it is possible that he worked for one of those (shhh!) organisations that don't publicly overtly state their purpose. [comments in square brackets are mine] "In 1942 he joined the Government Code and Cipher School [at Bletchley Park] and worked there with Turing." Bletchley Park, otherwise known as Station X has been referred to as "Britain's Best Kept Secret". It was home to the Ultra Project (which decrypted almost all of Germany's top level comms) and the Colossus machines. http://www.cranfield.ac.uk/ccc/bpark/ http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/ http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Turing.html "The decoding operation at Bletchley Park became the basis for the new decoding and intelligence work at GCHQ. With the cold war this became an important operation and Turing continued to work for GCHQ, although his Manchester colleagues were totally unaware of this. Now after his conviction [for Homosexuality], his security clearance was withdrawn. Worse than that, security officers were now extremely worried that someone with complete knowledge of the work going on at GCHQ was now labelled a security risk. He had many foreign colleagues, as any academic would, but the police began to investigate his foreign visitors. A holiday which Turing took in Greece in 1953 caused consternation among the security officers. Turing died of potassium cyanide poisoning while conducting electrolysis experiments. The cyanide was found on a half eaten apple beside him. An inquest concluded that it was self- administered but his mother always maintained that it was an accident." There are other examples of such accidents amongst EX military intelligence people around that time. At first Turing was working in Manchester for Newman without pay (from Manchester). > "...Thanks to ze efforts of some enlightened mediums who are > knowledgeable about zis 'Internetz' of your modern era, selected > of us restless departed souls have been granted limited browsing > und e-mail privileges from ze great beyond. Zese mediums are > automatically transcribing ze voices zey hear, vich means zat > my missives vill probably sound like badly accented Tcherman, > even zo in reality mein written English ist sehr gut." > > {Bunch of blah blah about his childhood and career snipped... > can we just cut to the chase here, fella?} > > "...ze very first thing I typed into zis 'search maschine' was > ze phrase 'Mersenne prime', und I haff subsequently spent many > months vading sroo mostly tedious messages about 'Mein Komputer > ist so much faster zen yoors' und 'mein Hard drive ist very big', > but occasionally encountering an item of genuine interest, zo > ze accompanying mathematics ist usually ganz falsch. Ze recent > posting by Mr. P. Landon of Lucent Technologie vus very interesting, > but I must state for ze rekord zat I vas avare of zis at ze time. > After all, Newman vas really chust a persona I invented so I could > obtain verk in England. Ze phrase 'Neu Mann' translates into 'New > man' in English. Neumann/Newman - quite clever, nicht wahr?" Well spotted that I work for Lucent TechnologIE GmbH. All of my friends and colleagues do speak like that ;-) Pr�st, Herr P. Landon (a persona I invented to work for the N�rnberg Labs :-) _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 14:02:23 -0800 From: Luke Welsh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Mersenne: (fwd)Looking for someone called BRET Hi all-- At first I thought this was spam, but I suppose not. - --Luke Dear friend My name is KOLOKOTRONIS PANAYIOTIS. This letter is sended from GREECE ( THASSOS Island ). I am looking for someone who is called BRET, or his name sounds like BRET, or his nick name is BRET. The only I know about him is that he is involved somehow with the search of mersenne numbers. He was talking frequently about the GIMPS, may be he is a participant, I hope so! If you have any idea about BRET, or if you know someone that you believe that is close to him, please sent him this letter. friendly Panos BRET if you at last recieve this letter please respond at: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 09:36:33 +1300 (NZDT) From: Bill Rea <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Mersenne: I get credit > Bill Rea wrote, in answer to a question: > > >Do people using the manual check out forms get in the Top Producers > >list? I ask because I've never been able to find myself in the list > >and I had an email from a former GIMPS contributor who claimed he > >got no credit for exponents tested through the manual check out/check in > >pages. > > (Bill said) So far as I know, manual testing work doesn't get credited on >the PrimeNet > top producers pages, but does appear on the GIMPS top producers pages: > >******************************* > >Bill, I do check out manually and I have been getting credit. It seems slow >but George kindly explain he does the updates on a weekend. I have noticed >it can be two weeks before the credit I am due is posted. But I must insist >it is ALWAYS posted (Yes, George, I check on it). I'm not one who's keenly interested in my standing in the contributor stakes. But it does appear to some people that credit wasn't being given which has lead people to quit GIMPS for lack of appreciation of their contribtions. I still can't quite figure out when the updates are being done, but my guess is that those using the manual checkout/in pages are only being credited after a database synchronization. Early in February I was credited with 50 exponents tested, even though I've finished 10 more since then, the figure on http://www.mersenne.org/top2.htm hasn't changed and I've dropped 30 places. I guess it's just human psychology that people need to feel appreciated. If we were finding new primes every few weeks a top producer list would be far less necessary as the rewards would be in finding primes. One thing I find a bit mystifying is why one should lose credit for an LL test if a factor is found later. After all, a non-prime result shows that its worthwhile continuing to look for factors (in a pure mathematics sense). A prime result means it's pointless to try to factor the number :-) Bill Rea, Information Technology Services, University of Canterbury \_ E-Mail b dot rea at its dot canterbury dot ac dot nz </ New Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax 64-3-364-2332 /) Zealand Unix Systems Administrator (/' _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers ------------------------------ End of Mersenne Digest V1 #696 ******************************
