Tour de Primes 2012
February is just a week away which means it is time for the 4th annual Tour de Primes. 2 is the first prime number...and the only even one. Therefore, we have declared February, the 2nd month, as prime month.
We're offering a small informal competition in tribute to this unique prime number. There are no points to be gained or awards to be won...just a simple rare jersey (Yellow, Green, and Polk-a-dot) at the end of the month to add to your badge collection. No pressure or stress other than what you put on yourself. :) For more information, please see Tour de Primes 2012.
24 Jan 2012 | 16:23:12 UTC
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The Year of the Dragon in 24 hours
The Dragon, the mightiest of all the signs, is a creature of myth and legend. In Asia, the Dragon is an auspicious creature, a symbol of benevolent power, strength and good luck and capable of great good. 23 January 2012 marks the start of the Year of the Dragon. Let's see if we can channel that Dragon energy to find some primes for the start of PrimeGrid's 2012 Challenge Series.
A 5 day Challenge is being offered on PrimeGrid's Proth Prime Search (LLR) application. For more information, please see this forum thread.
22 Jan 2012 | 15:22:23 UTC
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Generalized Fermat Mega Prime
On 18 Jan 2012 21:13:24 UTC, PrimeGrid’s Generalized Fermat Prime Search found the mega prime: 525094^262144+1
The prime is 1,499,526 digits long and enters Chris Caldwell's The Largest Known Primes Database ranked 2nd for Generalized Fermat Primes and 24th overall.
The discovery was made by David Tomecko of the United States using an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 in an Intel Core i7 980 @ 3.33GHz system with 24GB RAM, running Windows 7 Ultimate. This GPU took about 55 minutes 24 seconds to probable prime (PRP) test with GenefCUDA. David is a member of the The Knights Who Say Ni! team.
The PRP was verified on 19 Jan 2012 7:37:53 UTC, by Rick Reynolds of the United States. For more details, please see the official announcement.
22 Jan 2012 | 3:48:31 UTC
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Mega Prime Found
On 17 Jan 2012 20:24:07 UTC, PrimeGrid’s Mega Prime Search, through PRPNet, found the Mega Prime: 81*2^3352924+1
The prime is 1,009,333 digits long and enters Chris Caldwell's The Largest Known Primes Database ranked 42nd overall. This prime is also a Generalized Fermat prime and ranks as the 6th largest found.
The discovery was made by Michał Gasewicz of Poland using an Intel dual Xeon E5520 @ 2.27GHz with 12GB RAM, running 64 bit Linux. This computer took just over 4 hours 28 minutes to complete the primality test using LLR. Michał is a member of the BOINC@Poland team.
For more details, please see the official announcement.
18 Jan 2012 | 15:35:16 UTC
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AVX build of llr
Gary Craig, a member of Aggie The Pew, was successful in compiling an AVX version of LLR using gwnum v27.2 and LLR v3.8.6dev. We've been testing it for the past week with success. Depending on the LLR project, speed improvements range from 20% to 50%.
For more details, please see this post
9 Jan 2012 | 6:35:17 UTC
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