Haw! But how do you *really* know they're prime? George Woltman (GIMPS) has provided a
fast algorithm in the great distributed search (only 4% of searches fry their CPU's)
and I hear that the Lucas Lehmer algorithm is farily simple - though it took several
weeks to find Mersenne Prime number 36. Still, given the track record of Intel Pentium
chips, who's to believe or disbelieve that the Cray supercomputer used to check it
isn't wrong too? It is certainly a different way of knowing MP36 is prime than knowing
MP1 = 2^2 - 1 = 3 is prime.
I really enoyed the divisibility thread. Another question has occured to me - is there a
quick way to check whether a given decimal is an integer multiple of some algebraic
irrational, say sqrt(2)? Probably not - stick to the MAA Monthly problems, eh?
Geoff Hagopian,
College of the Desert
Four Twain, Tazakistan, NJ
ps I'll pay about $8 per month to classify the Monthly problems.
****************************************************************************
* To post to the list: email mathedcc@archives.math.utk.edu *
* To unsubscribe, send mail to: majordomo@archives.math.utk.edu *
* In the mail message, enter ONLY the words: unsubscribe mathedcc *
* Words in the Subject: line are NOT processed! *
* Archives at http://archives.math.utk.edu/hypermail/mathedcc/ *
****************************************************************************