FW: [IP] What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com

 

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber
To: ip
Sent: 10/1/2008 11:31 AM
Subject: [IP] What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/09/30/what-can-you-do-with
-a-12-million-digit-prime-number/

What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number?
By Andrew Heining | 09.30.08

The scientific world is abuzz this week with news that researchers at 
UCLA have discovered a prime number with more than 10 million digits. 
The find qualifies them for a $100,000 prize from the Electronic 
Frontier Foundation (EFF) and undeniable geek cred, but a decidedly 
unscientific survey of comments from around the web concludes that the 
overall response to the announcement is: So what?

Not being a math whiz myself by any means, I set out to find an answer 
to this question. Are monster prime numbers the key to clean energy? 
Negative. Can you prevent space shuttle accidents with a gigundo-
prime? Survey says: no. But megaprimes will help rid your golf game of 
that nasty slice, right? Wrong again.

When a frustrated parent questioned the importance of her daughter 
learning about prime numbers in school, the helpful folks at Ask Dr. 
Math pointed out that primes are the basis of RSA encryption. Whenever 
online shoppers send personal information and credit card numbers 
across the web, prime numbers provide the backbone of that security.

Besides keeping your identity secure, primes have long been used as a 
math shortcut, helping with factoring, linear equations, and other 
things you probably haven't thought about since high school.

But why did the EFF offer $100,000 for the first person to discover a 
10-million-digit-plus prime number? The hunt for large primes requires 
massive computing power – the production of which is prohibitively 
expensive for a single organization. Distributive computing – the same 
kind UCLA used to find their megaprime – makes a supercomputer out of 
many smaller individual machines, using the web to stitch all that 
power together. The EFF Cooperative Computing Awards provide an 
incentive for everyday Internet users to contribute to solving great 
scientific problems.

The method is the message.

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