Re: Mersenne: Graphical visualisation of computations
Hi, I think you should be very careful about how much graphical information is to be represented. I have just joined GIMPS recently after using SETI@home. That program has a nice graphical interface, but many people, my self included, spent much time and effort to either disable the display, or use a text only version and various tweaking to speed the machine up. The reason for this is that it takes a great many CPU cycles to perform the display, cycles that would be better spent doing the testing. In the case of SETI@home a speed increase of around 300% was obtained by not having the display!! Don't get me wrong I would like to see some more information about what is going on, but not at the expense of loosing time. Regards, Jukka Santala [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on Friday 24 September 1999 at 5:25 PM: Though you ask this, I find the topic rather appropriate for the list, especially given the angle of "HOW can we visualize the process of mathemathical operations. That brings me to the following observation: I think few of us fully realize the _enormous_ amount of (highly optimized) processing required each iteration to achieve something that looks so simple: a squaring, minus 2, mod (2^p-1). Remember, you see nothing happening! Prime just tells you: I used so-and-so-many BILLION clock cycles on the previous iteration. When a computer is ray-tracing (preferrably on some fancy high-end workstation) you are immediately dazzled by the picture-perfect pixels appearing on the screen in brilliant colours. But your result is not for eternity. In GIMPS it is. M7xx tested. Composite. Or: M10yy trial-factored to 2^65. No factors below 2^65. And you know that YOU discovered that mathematical fact. That little 64bit residue or checksum is precious. If you had a grain of rice for the number of clock cycles needed to produce just one of those bits, you could feed the entire (current) world population for a whole year! Is that about right? Whatever the correct figure, the program doesn't show you what it's doing. Actually, it might be interesting to be able to see, say, just the last 64 bits (in hex) of the current number L[n] in the Lucas sequence. The program displays those bits for L[p-1], right? So why not during the sequence? The program should IMHO at least -optionally- display a progress bar showing graphically what it now only shows in digits: progress on current exponent [95.2% completed]. The bar would probably grow one pixel longer every couple of hours. Any comments on the issue of graphical visualisation? Cheers, Robert van der Peijl _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers Mike, -- ATLAS CELESTE - Bevis Star Atlas - "The CD-ROM" A very rare atlas found at the Godlee Observatory http://www.u-net.com/ph/mas/bevis/ Astronomy in the UKhttp://www.ph.u-net.com _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Graphical visualisation of computations
At 01:42 AM 9/26/1999 -0400, Lucas Wiman wrote: not, but, what would it show? A progress bar, maybe... anything else? There isn't really anything else to show. Intermediate results of the LL test don't themselves have a lot of meaning (even the final result, if non-zero, is devoid of much interpretation). There's not a lot you could plot - a graph of the iteration time would only serve to show when you opened Microsoft Word or something... Yes, but the point is that they may be pretty. (?) This probably wouldn't alter anyone who already is at GIMPS, but it might attract new members. This feature (based on George's postings about his interests in the project) would be badly maintaned, and a support headache. I think it should be emphasized, though, that that pretty-looking SETI interface is a pig. On Win* machines, it often more than doubles the time required to complete a block of data. All of the people I know who run SETI went "Ooooh, ah!" when they saw the GUI, then promptly turned it off because it hogged so many cycles. The REAL attraction of the SETI project is the chance to be the person who helps to discover the existence of E.T. Face it, that captures the public's imagination much more, generally, than does hunting for large prime numbers. I believe the initial attraction to SETI is not the interface, but rather the chance to discover E.T. Just my $.02, Kel _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Mersenne: Graphical visualisation of computations
Jukka Santala [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on Friday 24 September 1999 at 5:25 PM: Though you ask this, I find the topic rather appropriate for the list, especially given the angle of "HOW can we visualize the process of mathemathical operations. That brings me to the following observation: I think few of us fully realize the _enormous_ amount of (highly optimized) processing required each iteration to achieve something that looks so simple: a squaring, minus 2, mod (2^p-1). Remember, you see nothing happening! Prime just tells you: I used so-and-so-many BILLION clock cycles on the previous iteration. When a computer is ray-tracing (preferrably on some fancy high-end workstation) you are immediately dazzled by the picture-perfect pixels appearing on the screen in brilliant colours. But your result is not for eternity. In GIMPS it is. M7xx tested. Composite. Or: M10yy trial-factored to 2^65. No factors below 2^65. And you know that YOU discovered that mathematical fact. That little 64bit residue or checksum is precious. If you had a grain of rice for the number of clock cycles needed to produce just one of those bits, you could feed the entire (current) world population for a whole year! Is that about right? Whatever the correct figure, the program doesn't show you what it's doing. Actually, it might be interesting to be able to see, say, just the last 64 bits (in hex) of the current number L[n] in the Lucas sequence. The program displays those bits for L[p-1], right? So why not during the sequence? The program should IMHO at least -optionally- display a progress bar showing graphically what it now only shows in digits: progress on current exponent [95.2% completed]. The bar would probably grow one pixel longer every couple of hours. Any comments on the issue of graphical visualisation? Cheers, Robert van der Peijl _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
Re: Mersenne: Graphical visualisation of computations
I think few of us fully realize the _enormous_ amount of (highly
optimized) processing required each iteration to achieve something that
looks so simple: a squaring, minus 2, mod (2^p-1).
Whatever the correct figure, the program doesn't show you what it's doing.
This is an interesting point - not so much whether a gui would be nice or
not, but, what would it show? A progress bar, maybe... anything else? There
isn't really anything else to show. Intermediate results of the LL test
don't themselves have a lot of meaning (even the final result, if non-zero,
is devoid of much interpretation). There's not a lot you could plot - a
graph of the iteration time would only serve to show when you opened
Microsoft Word or something...
I must admit, I dallied (albeit very briefly) with the bovine rc5 client.
Were it not for their peculiar statistics ('if keys were drops of water, we
could flood the world in a week' etc) I'd have got bored of the effort a lot
sooner than I did. The SETI client looks pretty (more of a screen burner
than a screen saver though) but the display is at best meaningless, a waste
of cycles at best.
I think we ought to count ourselves lucky that what we've got is bare-bones
and low-impact.
Chris Nash
Lexington KY
UNITED STATES
_
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Re: Mersenne: Graphical visualisation of computations
I must admit, I dallied (albeit very briefly) with the bovine rc5 client. Gack! About the only manufactured challenge comes from ID software. Should read About the only more manufactured challenge comes form ID software. :) -Lucas _ Unsubscribe list info -- http://www.scruz.net/~luke/signup.htm Mersenne Prime FAQ -- http://www.tasam.com/~lrwiman/FAQ-mers
