IIRC the claim was that there were only 37 M primes. A lively discussion took place, because there was no M38 known at that time. The person claimed that we were all wasting our time because there was clearly no M38. He made no comment once M38 was found.
As for me, my feeling is that the number of M primes is finite whereas mainstream view is that the number of them is infinite. I have no proof: neither do the others. If anyone finds a proof answering the question one way or the other, then I expect everyone comfortable with rigorous mathematical proofs will have the same opinion after that. Regards, Ian -- Ian W Halliday, BA Hons, AAIBF Snr, ATMS, CL +64 27 245 6089 (GMT+12) http://baptism.co.nz ; http://ringbark.livejournal.com Word documents not accepted -- see http://baptism.co.nz/word.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "teun Tilburg University" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "George Woltman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: 17 May 2004 05:45 Subject: Re: [Prime] 41st Mersenne Prime reported! > Hi, > > > The newly reported prime is genuine. The user has sent in his last savefile. > > I reran the final 15,000 iterations and rediscovered the prime!! > > Great. Best news since a long time. > > A few years back, if I remember correctly there was someone who conjectured > on this list that there were only 40 Mersenne Primes. He gave no proof :-) > > Can someone find that message and mail something civilised to the sender? > > have fun, > > teun > _______________________________________________ > Prime mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://hogranch.com/mailman/listinfo/prime > _______________________________________________ Prime mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hogranch.com/mailman/listinfo/prime
