Like, really?
So a new number was discovered - a prime number, or one that is divisible only by itself and 1. The "new" number has 13-million digits, which seems a bit extreme to me. It appears mathematicians have been at it for a long time, and the winning UCLA team will get a 100K prize (that's only a 6 digit number - 8 if you count what comes after the decimal point).
To get to the shiny new number, it took 75 networked computers running for god knows how long. The results were verified by a different bunch of computers running a different algorithm.
Did we really need a new number? I think we're OK with the ones we have. Big numbers just give people ideas. Perhaps we can utilize all this calculating power to compute our national debt?
To get to the shiny new number, it took 75 networked computers running for god knows how long. The results were verified by a different bunch of computers running a different algorithm.
Did we really need a new number? I think we're OK with the ones we have. Big numbers just give people ideas. Perhaps we can utilize all this calculating power to compute our national debt?
Labels: musings
posted by Fe at 5:35 PM
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