On reading this message, an old principle of logic comes to mind: IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO PROVE A NEGATIVE.
:) Regards all, Keith ----- Original Message ----- From: "Halliday, Ian" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 2:32 PM Subject: Re: [Prime] 41st Mersenne Prime reported! | 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 _______________________________________________ Prime mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hogranch.com/mailman/listinfo/prime
