<<The publishers set a deadline of March 15, 2002.>> Heh heh - maybe 2202 would be more reasonable. << All above 21 are either 0, 1 or 2 mod 3, and are therefore the sum of either 1, 2 or 3 sevens with a sufficient number of 3's thrown on top. I am sure this can (and should) be stated far more formerly, but my real question is this: Is it possible to strengthen this conjecture, say by putting a ceiling on the number of times that any one prime need be repeated? Such a statement can also be made for the odd positive integers. 1, 5 and 11 are the only exceptions that need be made, since all odds above 13 can be written as the sum of an even number above 8 and a Mersenne prime.>> I don't really understand what you're saying. You're saying that you can express a number as A*X + B*Y, where A and B are integers and X and Y are Mersenne primes (3 and 7). If I remember correctly, this is a specific case of a more general result. (Try to figure out what that might be...!) Your second paragraph is not comprehensible to me. :-O Off-topic: Next year, when I refer to events prior to 2001, I'll be able to say "You know, back in the twentieth..." Heh heh. Stephan "Video Killed the Radio Star" Lavavej _________________________________________________________________ Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
