On Sunday 24 March 2002 18:06, Eric Hahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>   Hmmmm....  I'm not going to say a SINGLE WORD!!!   Especially considering
> it appeared NOBODY had ever noticed that post...
>
>   As Enron executives have been saying... "I would like to
> reserve my right to remain silent under the 5th amendment..."
>
> >>From: "Dale Horn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >>Subject: Predicting Mersenne Primes
>
> >>I was wondering if is was possible to predict where a Mersenne
> >>Prime will be?

In the statistical sense, yes, it is possible to predict. That is rather 
similar to the statistician's argument during the briefing for the first 1000 
bomber raid over Cologne in May 1942 that predicted only two aircraft would 
collide, despite the incredible density of aircraft over the target, at any 
rate compared with modern air traffic control standards! The question asked 
by the crews was, of course, "_Which_ two aircraft are going to collide?" As 
it happened, the statisticians were perfectly correct - two aircraft _were_ 
lost due to collision (together with forty odd losses from other causes - 
including enemy action) but it was of course no more possible to predict 
exactly which aircraft were going to collide than it is to predict which 
specific Mersenne numbers will be prime without actually running LL tests.

> >>I ask because I was looking at the mersenne.org website and
> >>noticed that it states that on December 6, 2001, the 39th
> >>known Mersenne Prime was found. It was listed as 2^13466917-1.
> >>I was also looking through some of the past digests from the
> >>list and noticed that an Eric Hahn posted a message on July 30,
> >>2000, stating that one of the ranges a Mersenne Prime should be
> >>found was between 2^13430227-1 and 2^13501387.

The actual prediction was that this interval was the interval _most likely_ 
to contain the _40th_ Mersenne prime. 

Regards
Brian Beesley
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