On Friday 02 November 2007 11:51, Andy Roland wrote: > > Anyway, assuming the status quo, it seems we have a bit over 50% > probability of finding the next one within five years.
Stick finger into air & test wind direction - yeah, that figure seems reasonable. > I guess that means a > 100% chance over the next 10 years. Well, I did say I was not a > statistician! Good job. 50% in 5 years means 75% in 10 years, 87.5% in 15 years... assuming work rate remains constant. It's a Poisson process, the probability remains below 100% however much processing power is applied to L-L testing and however long we carry on doing it. Good job you're not a number theorist too - there is no absolute guarantee that there are any more Mersenne primes at all.... the existence of at least some undiscovered Mersenne primes is however very, very probable. Regards Brian Beesley _______________________________________________ Prime mailing list [email protected] http://hogranch.com/mailman/listinfo/prime
