Well, unless there is an announcement within the next few hours, 2000
will be the first calender year in the history of GIMPS without a
Mersenne prime.
Is the number of searchers, and the power of their hardware, increasing
enough to keep up with the increased runtimes and (slightly) decreased
chance of a given exponent being prime? Or can we expect only one prime
every several years, as was the case before the start of the GIMPS
effort?
This might be a good discussion, since the list is fairly quiet now.
Nathan
_________________________________________________________________________
Unsubscribe & list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm
Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
