Areed.181
net.general
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!harpo!chico!duke!reed!crandall
Fri Jul 31 03:29:06 1981
giant primes
several months ago we networked word of some giant prime numbers
discovered here (with 'as' & 'c' routines, v7 unix 11/70) and that
we were attempting to settle the primality question for all num-
bers of the four forms:
n! + 1 n! - 1 2*3*5*...*p + 1 2*3*5*...*p - 1
having not more than 1000 digits.
this note is to announce that all such primes are now known.
compute time: 3 million cpu-secs, of which four-fifths involved
primality proofs per se. the last of the four categories above is
by far the toughest. also, we actually went beyond 500! +- 1.
i propose that a name be adopted for the unit of one million
cpu-seconds; and that the name be 'maid', in honor of the famous
dinner maid who rescued blaise pascal.
finally, i wonder how many projects out there in unix-land re-
quire a maid ?
r.e.crandall
department of physics
reed college
portland, or 97202
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