Day +689 : I join the search :-)

I am fine today.

I am a GIMPS member now!

I started to run PRIME95 on my notebook computer since Thursday, 22 May 2008 :-)

I was given the task to test M42097619. What does this mean? Again, refer to Wikipedia:

In mathematics, a Mersenne number is a number that is one less than a power of two,

M_n = 2ⁿ − 1

A Mersenne prime is a Mersenne number that is a prime number. … in modern times the largest known prime has nearly always been a Mersenne prime

So, M42097619 is equivalent to 2^42,097,619 – 1. In other words, I am given the task to determine if 2^42,097,619 – 1 is a prime number. Still remember? The last known Mersenne Prime is 2^32,582,657-1 which is slightly below 10 million digit. M42097619 is definitely more than 10 million digit, but the chances of it to be a prime is only 1 in 3,48,487 :-(

The work is expected to complete in early August, in more than 2 months time. Imagine this is just testing a single number. So it surely needs a lot of patience to participate in the search? But luckily only the computer, not me, needs to be patience, because it does most of the job :-)

I have to leave the computer running 24 hours a day and the software take up 50% of CPU utilization all the time.

The status of my job. Click any of the figures below to get a larger view.

The notebook's CPU
PRIM95 took up 50% of CPU utilization all the time
A log that shows the communication between PRIME95 with the server.
My church member Mr. Phang commented that his computer might break down before it finds the prime number. So he gives up before trying :-(

But I think otherwise. My computer is still under warranty. It is a good idea to stress it to the limit now so that any flaw can be discovered before the warranty expired. If it performs well under the stressful condition, then it should be able to perform well after the warranty :-)

See you next post :-)