Welcome to Isaac Newton's Birthday Challenge

The first Challenge of the 2017 Challenge series is a 10 day challenge to celebrate Isaac Newton's 374th Birthday! The challenge is being offered on PrimeGrid's newest sieve, the Generalized Cullen/Woodall (Sieve) application. Come join us and help in preparations for the opening of the Generalized Cullen/Woodall LLR project some time in 2017.

Sir Isaac Newton was an English physicist and mathematician (described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and a key figure in the scientific revolution. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics. Newton made seminal contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for the development of calculus.

Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes, and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the Solar System.

Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of colour based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colours of the visible spectrum. He formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound, and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid. In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalised the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, developed a method for approximating the roots of a function, and classified most of the cubic plane curves.

On January 4, 1643, Isaac Newton was born at Woolsthorpe Manor in the hamlet of Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, in the county of Lincolnshire, England (using the "old" Julien calendar, Newton's birth date is sometimes displayed as December 25, 1642).

To participate in the Challenge, please select only the Generalized Cullen/Woodall (Sieve) project in your PrimeGrid preferences section. The challenge will begin 3rd January 2017 18:00 UTC and end 13th January 2017 18:00 UTC.
Application builds are available for the following:

• Microsoft Windows (98 or later) running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 1.00
  
• Microsoft Windows running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU 1.00
  
• Linux running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 1.00
  
• Linux running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU 1.00
  
• Mac OS 10.4 or later running on Intel 1.00
  
• Mac OS 10.5+ running on an Intel 64-bit CPU 1.00
  

Time zone converter:

The World Clock - Time Zone Converter

NOTE: The countdown clock on the front page uses the host computer time. Therefore, if your computer time is off, so will the countdown clock. For precise timing, use the UTC Time in the data section to the left of the countdown clock.

Scoring Information

Scores will be kept for individuals and teams. Only work units issued AFTER 3rd January 2017 18:00 UTC and received BEFORE 13th January 2017 18:00 UTC will be considered for credit. We will be using the same scoring method as we currently use for BOINC credits.
A quorum of 2 is NOT needed to award Challenge score - i.e. no double checker. Therefore, each returned result will earn a Challenge score. Please note that if the result is eventually declared invalid, the score will be removed.


At the Conclusion of the Challenge
We would prefer users "moving on" to finish those tasks they have downloaded, if not then please ABORT the WU's instead of DETACHING, RESETTING, or PAUSING.

ABORTING WU's allows them to be recycled immediately; thus a much faster "clean up" to the end of an LLR Challenge. DETACHING, RESETTING, and PAUSING WU's causes them to remain in limbo until they EXPIRE. Therefore, we must wait until WU's expire to send them out to be completed.

Please consider either completing what's in the queue or ABORTING them. Thank you. :)


About Cullen and Woodall Numbers

A Cullen number (first studied by Reverend James Cullen in 1905) is a number of the form n * 2^n + 1. Father James Cullen, S.J. (19 April 1867 – 7 December 1933) was born at Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. In 1905, he taught mathematics at Mount St. Mary's College in Derbyshire and published his finding of what is now known as Cullen numbers in number theory.

A Woodall number is a number of the form n * 2^n - 1. Woodall numbers were first studied by Allan J. C. Cunningham and H. J. Woodall in 1917, inspired by James Cullen's earlier study of the similarly-defined Cullen numbers.

The British mathematician Allan Joseph Champneys Cunningham (Delhi 1842 – London 1928) started a military career with the East India Company's Bengal (later Royal) Engineers. During 1871–1881, he was Instructor in Mathematics at the Thomason Civil Engineering College, Roorkee. Upon returning to the United Kingdom in 1881, he continued teaching at military institutes in Chatham, Dublin and Shorncliffe. He left the army in 1891. He spent the rest of his life studying number theory. He applied his expertise to finding factors of large numbers of the form a^n ± b^n, such as Mersenne numbers (2^p − 1) and Fermat numbers (2^2^n + 1) which have b = 1. His work was continued in the Cunningham project.

Herbert J. Woodall was a British mathematician. In 1925 Lt.-Col. Allan J.C. Cunningham and Woodall gathered together all that was known about the primality and factorization of such numbers and published a small book of tables. These tables collected from scattered sources the known prime factors for the bases 2 and 10 and also presented the authors' results of thirty years' work with these and the other bases.

This year we are celebrating the centenary of the study of Woodall numbers!


About the Generalized Cullen/Woodall Prime Search

Generalized Cullen and Woodall numbers are of the form n * b^n + 1 and n * b^n - 1, respectively, where n + 2 > b.

PrimeGrid is moving its search for Generalized Cullen and Generalized Woodall primes from PRPNet to BOINC. PrimeGrid will be sieving to a much larger n than has been previously done. The largest candidates will be in excess of 15,000,000 digits, and will be the same size as the largest candidates in the Seventeen or Bust project.

Once PrimeGrid finds a Generalized Cullen or Woodall on a base, it stops looking for Generalized Cullen or Woodall primes on that base, depending on the type found. For all the current bases, PrimeGrid has found a Generalized Woodall prime, and will now be searching only for Generalized Cullen Primes. For detail about the bases PrimeGrid will be searching (and has searched), you can go here: http://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=3008&nowrap=true#30718.

Once the sieving is getting near optimal for 4-million digit candidates, PrimeGrid anticipates restarting LLR work as well, and would expect this to occur some time in 2017.

For more information on Generalized Cullen and Woodall Numbers, you can go here: http://primes.utm.edu/top20/page.php?id=42 and here: http://primes.utm.edu/top20/page.php?id=45.


What is sieving?

Sieving is the first step to prime finding. In general, a sieve separates wanted/desired elements from unwanted material using a tool such as a mesh, net or other filtration or distillation methods. The word "sift" derives from this term. (Wikipedia - Sieve)

In PrimeGrid's case, the desired elements ultimately are prime numbers and the unwanted material are composite numbers. Our tool of choice for GCW sieve is Geoffrey Reynolds' gcwsieve program. It eliminates possible candidates by removing numbers that have small factors. As this process is much faster than primality testing, it is good to thoroughly sieve a data set before primality testing.

Sieving removes many candidates at the beginning. However, the deeper the sieve goes, the slower the rate of removal, till eventually sieving removes candidates at the same rate as primality testing. This is sometimes referred to as "optimal depth". Primality testing is recommended at this point.

There are many factors that determine how much time and how deep to sieve. After sieving, all the remaining candidates must be primality tested to determine their "prime" status.

About Isaac Newton

*Wikipedia

____________

After the Greeks, little happened with the study of prime numbers until the 17th century. In 1640 Pierre de Fermat stated (without proof) Fermat's little theorem (later proved by Leibniz and Euler). Fermat's little theorem is a particularly simple example of a probabilistic test, which relies on the fact that n^p≡n (mod p) for any n if p is a prime number. Leibniz was a contemporary of Newton. They have a tangled history with Leibniz deeply interested in the new methods and conclusions of Descartes, Huygens, Newton, and Boyle. Newton shares credit with Leibniz for the development of calculus.

Isaac Newton was a truly amazing mathematician and scientist. He achieved so much in his lifetime and the amount of discoveries he made can seem almost impossible. He helped make huge advancements in mathematics and created theorems that we still use heavily to this day. Although largely synonymous in the minds of the general public today with gravity and the story of the apple tree, Newton remains a giant in the minds of mathematicians everywhere (on a par with the all-time greats like Archimedes and Gauss), and he greatly influenced the subsequent path of mathematical development.
http://www.storyofmathematics.com/17th_newton.html

Cullen numbers were first studied by Fr. James Cullen in 1905. Woodall numbers were first studied by Allan J. C. Cunningham and H. J. Woodall in 1917. Both Cullen and Woodall stood on the shoulders of the many mathematicians before them.

A century since Woodall - nice to acknowledge some way.

Will there be new SIEVEFILES prior to the challenge?

Just asking as I want to be sure to have all 14 files on all joining machines before the challenge starts.... downloading them now and seeing new ones tomorrow might be... well, non efficient ;-)

Is there an estimation what the benefit of brand new files would be (compared to the current ones, dated Oct/Nov) - if any?

Will there be new SIEVEFILES prior to the challenge?

Just asking as I want to be sure to have all 14 files on all joining machines before the challenge starts.... downloading them now and seeing new ones tomorrow might be... well, non efficient ;-)

Is there an estimation what the benefit of brand new files would be (compared to the current ones, dated Oct/Nov) - if any?

I've been looking forward to this challenge. I hope that it is really able to push the leading edge of the sieve forward. Best of luck to everyone!
____________

The Challenge series page now showing the 2017 schedule:
http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/challenge.php

I've changed my Computing Preference in BOINC to "Store at least 0 days of work".
That way I can have a rolling start while I am asleep, wake up then increase it once the challenge has started.

The affect of everyones rolling start can be clearly seen in the project results table:

The Challenge series page now showing the 2017 schedule:
http://www.primegrid.com/challenge/challenge.php

I've changed my Computing Preference in BOINC to "Store at least 0 days of work".
That way I can have a rolling start while I am asleep, wake up then increase it once the challenge has started.

The affect of everyones rolling start can be clearly seen in the project results table:

Thank you for the graphs very interesting. Do you have an idea of how much sieving needs to be done before GCW-LLR can be opened up?

We're off to a fantastic start! After the first day:

Challenge: Isaac Newton's Birthday
App: 29 (GCW-Sieve)
(As of 2017-01-04 18:07:06 UTC)

230880 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 228847 (99%) / 0 (0%) / 2033 (1%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

2139 (1%) came back with some kind of an error. [2127 (1%) / 0 (0%) / 12 (0%)]
105328 (46%) have returned a successful result. [103500 (45%) / 0 (0%) / 1830 (1%)]
123440 (53%) are still in progress. [123248 (53%) / 0 (0%) / 191 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

52019 (49%) are pending validation. [51087 (49%) / 0 (0%) / 934 (1%)]
53306 (51%) have been successfully validated. [52410 (50%) / 0 (0%) / 896 (1%)]
1 (0%) were invalid. [1 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
2 (0%) are inconclusive. [2 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

Normal for GCW sieve is about 14K tasks per day, so we're running somewhere between 7.5 times the normal rate (based on tasks returned) and 16 times the normal rate (based on tasks sent out.)

If this keeps up, we're going to make a big dent in the sieving we need to do before being able to open up GCW-LLR.

The amount of processing power being brought to bear on this challenge is astounding. I'm running a Haswell Core i5 -- not a Skylake, but not exactly ancient either -- and I'm currently in 236th place.
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

The amount of processing power being brought to bear on this challenge is astounding. I'm running a Haswell Core i5 -- not a Skylake, but not exactly ancient either -- and I'm currently in 236th place.

Cool.
A bit a pitty that there is no GPU version for it ;-)

got a point there, why GPU app for PPS -sieve is available but not for GCW-Sieve
is unclear to me either. would be a quantum leap forward, not ?
Maybe someone in the know can explain why this is the case...

Cool.
A bit a pitty that there is no GPU version for it ;-)

got a point there, why GPU app for PPS -sieve is available but not for GCW-Sieve
is unclear to me either. would be a quantum leap forward, not ?
Maybe someone in the know can explain why this is the case...

A sieve for constant K requires a completely different algorithm. Probably Pollard Rho subdivided into blocks, so that it can terminate early.

A sieve for constant K requires a completely different algorithm. Probably Pollard Rho subdivided into blocks, so that it can terminate early.

I've always assumed, probably erroneously, that the sieves all use modular arithmetic to determine if p divides k*b^n+/-1. Is this not the case?

What about other values of b which are powers of 2 (e.g. 4, 8, 16)? If you use bit shifts and other bit manipulations in your algorithm, you should be able to modify it quite easily for such values of b and still keep it fast.

Just shy of 2 days into the challenge:

So far, there are 2438 hosts with 20265 cores participating in the challenge.

591 users. 112 teams.

That's an average of 8.3 cores per host, 4.1 computers per user, and 34.3 cores per user.

Sadly, I'm dragging all three averages down. :(
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

That's an average of 8.3 cores per host

That's an average of 8.3 cores per host

Wow. Even with hyper threading, I'm surprised it is more than 8. There must be quite a few Xeon or other multi-CPU systems out there to bring the average up. Just two of my 15 participating systems contribute over 50% of the threads I bring...

We're 20% of the way through this challenge:

Challenge: Isaac Newton's Birthday
App: 29 (GCW-Sieve)
(As of 2017-01-05 18:11:51 UTC)

414622 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 410762 (99%) / 0 (0%) / 3860 (1%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

3045 (1%) came back with some kind of an error. [2950 (1%) / 0 (0%) / 95 (0%)]
245929 (59%) have returned a successful result. [242462 (58%) / 0 (0%) / 3468 (1%)]
165665 (40%) are still in progress. [165367 (40%) / 0 (0%) / 298 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

88337 (36%) are pending validation. [87089 (35%) / 0 (0%) / 1249 (1%)]
157584 (64%) have been successfully validated. [155368 (63%) / 0 (0%) / 2216 (1%)]
6 (0%) were invalid. [4 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]
2 (0%) are inconclusive. [1 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 1 (0%)]

Using the most conservative metric (tasks successfully returned), we're doing 8.5 times our normal rate. Fantastic! (That's the equivalent of doing an extra 2.5 months of sieving over the course of the full 10 days.)
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Just shy of 3 days into the challenge:

So far, there are 2632 hosts (up from 2438 yesterday) with 22094 cores (up from 20265 yesterday) participating in the challenge.

656 users (up from 591). 121 teams (up from 112).

That's an average of 8.4 cores per host (up from 8.3), 4.0 computers per user (down from 4.1), and 30.9 cores per user (down from 34.3).



____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

After three days:

Challenge: Isaac Newton's Birthday
App: 29 (GCW-Sieve)
(As of 2017-01-06 18:25:23 UTC)

592025 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 586467 (99%) / 0 (0%) / 5558 (1%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

9115 (2%) came back with some kind of an error. [9016 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 99 (0%)]
403028 (68%) have returned a successful result. [397868 (67%) / 0 (0%) / 5163 (1%)]
179924 (30%) are still in progress. [179629 (30%) / 0 (0%) / 296 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

110287 (27%) are pending validation. [108916 (27%) / 0 (0%) / 1374 (0%)]
292727 (73%) have been successfully validated. [288942 (72%) / 0 (0%) / 3785 (1%)]
8 (0%) were invalid. [5 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 3 (0%)]
6 (0%) are inconclusive. [5 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 1 (0%)]


Participation in this challenge is incredible. At the start of the challenge, the leading edges of the GCW sieves varied from 8T to 20T, depending on the base. The leading edges, after three days of the challenge, are at 13T to 34T.

____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Shoutout to Jim:

Here's the current live statistics:

Challenge: Isaac Newton's Birthday
App: 29 (GCW-Sieve)
(As of 2017-01-07 12:24:13 UTC)

728649 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 721763 (99%) / 0 (0%) / 6886 (1%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

18269 (3%) came back with some kind of an error. [18165 (2%) / 0 (0%) / 104 (0%)]
525117 (72%) have returned a successful result. [518631 (71%) / 0 (0%) / 6488 (1%)]
185324 (25%) are still in progress. [185034 (25%) / 0 (0%) / 294 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

118490 (23%) are pending validation. [116951 (22%) / 0 (0%) / 1541 (0%)]
406627 (77%) have been successfully validated. [401680 (76%) / 0 (0%) / 4947 (1%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

After 4 days:

There are 2801 hosts (up from 2632 yesterday) with 23528 cores (up from 22094 yesterday) participating in the challenge.

717 users (up from 656). 129 teams (up from 121).

That's an average of 8.4 cores per host (same as yesterday), 3.9 computers per user (down from 4.0), and 32.8 cores per user (up from 30.9).


Challenge: Isaac Newton's Birthday
App: 29 (GCW-Sieve)
(As of 2017-01-07 18:05:09 UTC)

768976 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 761576 (99%) / 0 (0%) / 7400 (1%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

20733 (3%) came back with some kind of an error. [20628 (3%) / 0 (0%) / 105 (0%)]
562596 (73%) have returned a successful result. [555597 (72%) / 0 (0%) / 6999 (1%)]
185686 (24%) are still in progress. [185392 (24%) / 0 (0%) / 296 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

120939 (21%) are pending validation. [119299 (21%) / 0 (0%) / 1640 (0%)]
441657 (79%) have been successfully validated. [436298 (78%) / 0 (0%) / 5359 (1%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]


We're now at a full 10x times normal daily volume. Keep it up!

Looks like my wife is getting a new laptop as an early birthday present. There's no ulterior motives. Nope, none at all. :)


____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Looks like my wife is getting a new laptop as an early birthday present. There's no ulterior motives. Nope, none at all. :)

5 days, and we're halfway:

There are 2960 hosts (up from 2801 yesterday) with 24825 cores (up from 23528 yesterday) participating in the challenge.

757 users (up from 717). 134 teams (up from 129).

That's an average of 8.4 cores per host (same as yesterday), 3.9 computers per user (same as yesterday), and 32.8 cores per user (also the same as yesterday).


Challenge: Isaac Newton's Birthday
App: 29 (GCW-Sieve)
(As of 2017-01-08 18:00:04 UTC)

965910 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 956380 (99%) / 0 (0%) / 9530 (1%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

47135 (5%) came back with some kind of an error. [47026 (5%) / 0 (0%) / 109 (0%)]
731551 (76%) have returned a successful result. [722436 (75%) / 0 (0%) / 9125 (1%)]
187259 (19%) are still in progress. [186966 (19%) / 0 (0%) / 297 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

119569 (16%) are pending validation. [117823 (16%) / 0 (0%) / 1756 (0%)]
611982 (84%) have been successfully validated. [604613 (83%) / 0 (0%) / 7369 (1%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]


I know, from reading their forums, that at least two of the top teams are fighting furiously to be on top, with new members and new computers coming on line to participate. The results reflect that: we're running at over 10x normal daily traffic on GCW-Sieve, which is absolutely fantastic. We've already done more sieving during the challenge than was done in the prior 2+ months since we opened the sieve.

The person, NeuralMiner, at the top of the leader board, first joined PrimeGrid after the challenge started! First of all, welcome to PrimeGrid! Secondly, with all that computer power, you may single-handedly push the Gridcoin team to the top of the leaderboards. With 5 days to go, it's going to be close.

By far this is the most participation I've seen for a challenge, in terms of raw computer power. Since we switched to giving the top 300 people points several years ago, I've never personally not made the top 300. For this challenge, I was slipping downwards towards 300, and probably wouldn't have made the cut without firing up every derelict computer I could find. (I'm even running an N550 Atom CPU now. It's only two tasks per day, but every task counts!) This is the fun thing about running a CPU-Sieve challenge. GPUs don't count. AVX doesn't count. All CPUs can participate, and even the slow computers add up and make a difference.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to take my wife to MicroCenter for her birthday present. :) The fact that there's a Broadwell CPU inside is pure coincidence. Really.
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Drove right by the closest microcenter to me this morning (around 2 hours drive from me), but they weren't open yet.. Was taking a friend to the airport and it was 7am, but they don't opem until 11am. Love that place.
____________

275*2^3585539+1 is prime!!! (1079358 digits)
Proud member of Aggie the Pew

For this challenge, I was slipping downwards towards 300, and probably wouldn't have made the cut without firing up every derelict computer I could find. (I'm even running an N550 Atom CPU now. It's only two tasks per day, but every task counts!) This is the fun thing about running a CPU-Sieve challenge. GPUs don't count. AVX doesn't count. All CPUs can participate, and even the slow computers add up and make a difference.

If you'd hand out work-units for PowerPC I'd go and buy more multiple socket-outlets and a network switch to attach a dual-core G5 plus some G4 and G3 machines.
With all the stuff already running inside my small apartment the additional tiny little bit of noise should be nothing!

Hope you had fun at your coincidental visit to MicroCenter.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to take my wife to MicroCenter for her birthday present. :) The fact that there's a Broadwell CPU inside is pure coincidence. Really.

Aaaaaand after days of hanging out in the 190's I've finally fallen below 200 and I have no more hardware to throw at this except for a laptop with an extremely questionable cooling fan.

I think this will be the last challenge for the Athlon II X4 635 based system. The CPU and motherboard are almost 7 years old and were in mothballs from late 2012 until this past fall. I'm actually surprised it still works at all. But now it's time to shut it down, sell it off, and enjoy a cooler place, lower electric bill, and a few dollars in my pocket.

Congrats on the new laptop for the wife, Mr. Goetz. New hardware is always fun.
____________
My Primes
Badge Score: 4*2 + 6*2 + 7*4 + 8*8 + 11*3 + 12*1 = 157

I am throwing just about everything I own at this and I'm still being passed by.

If this was a 20 day challenge we'd possibly be able to get all 14 bases to optimal depth for opening GCW-LLR, or at least be fairly close to it.

How about checking with everyone if we should extend to 20 days? I am in either way!

If this was a 20 day challenge we'd possibly be able to get all 14 bases to optimal depth for opening GCW-LLR, or at least be fairly close to it.

How about checking with everyone if we should extend to 20 days? I am in either way!

I think changing the challenge terms now would upset a LOT of people and isn't going to happen.

If this was a 20 day challenge we'd possibly be able to get all 14 bases to optimal depth for opening GCW-LLR, or at least be fairly close to it.

I'm really hoping there is similar interest and attention to the SoB challenge in March. I really want to see that competed in my lifetime.

I'm really hoping there is similar interest and attention to the SoB challenge in March. I really want to see that competed in my lifetime.

I hope so too. And I think it will if the double check is going by then and workunit sizes are smaller. The smaller units will be much more manageable on older/less capable hardware.
At current workunit sizes I would be surprised if my Pentium Dual-Core or my Athlon II would even manage to complete any workunits within 15 days. haha

Six days in:

Challenge: Isaac Newton's Birthday
App: 29 (GCW-Sieve)
(As of 2017-01-09 18:03:23 UTC)

1153167 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 1141545 (99%) / 0 (0%) / 11622 (1%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

64844 (6%) came back with some kind of an error. [64728 (6%) / 0 (0%) / 116 (0%)]
903112 (78%) have returned a successful result. [891908 (77%) / 0 (0%) / 11208 (1%)]
185217 (16%) are still in progress. [184924 (16%) / 0 (0%) / 298 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

122111 (14%) are pending validation. [120330 (13%) / 0 (0%) / 1785 (0%)]
781000 (86%) have been successfully validated. [771578 (85%) / 0 (0%) / 9422 (1%)]
1 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 1 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

There are 3117 hosts (up from 2960 yesterday) with 25855 cores (up from 24825 yesterday) participating in the challenge.

798 users (up from 757). 140 teams (up from 134).

That's an average of 8.3 cores per host (down from 8.4 yesterday), 3.9 computers per user (same as yesterday), and 32.4 cores per user (down from 32.8 yesterday).

During the first 6 days of the challenge we have completed 124.9% as much sieving as was done prior to the start of the challenge (2+ months).
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Now, assume a hypothetical LLR task that my Haswell desktop can also run at the rate of 4 tasks every 1.25 hours. Here's a guess as to how long each computer would take on those LLR tasks:

Haswell i5 desktop: 4 tasks every 1.25 hours
Kaby Lake i5 laptop: 4 tasks every 2 hours
Haswell i3 laptop: 4 tasks every 3 hours
1st-gen i3 laptop: 4 tasks every 15 hours

If this was a 20 day challenge we'd possibly be able to get all 14 bases to optimal depth for opening GCW-LLR, or at least be fairly close to it.

How about checking with everyone if we should extend to 20 days? I am in either way!

I think changing the challenge terms now would upset a LOT of people and isn't going to happen.

Plus there's people who have other things they want to do with their computers, whether it's other PrimeGrid projects or other projects elsewhere. And I'm sure some would simply like their houses to cool off. :)

Let's not forget that changing the rules in the middle of a game isn't at all fair, and we'd only do that in an emergency. We might make a challenge shorter for example, if we found that the server couldn't handle it, but not longer.

And, finally, this would be Roger's call, not mine, so I'm passing the buck. :) But I wouldn't even bother asking people. There's a 100% chance that there will be some people who would be very unhappy with such a change.

I saw "optimal depth" mentioned few times here, and that would be achieved in a few months. Does it mean that you will suspend GCW-Sieve when it will be reached, it is is optimal depth to start GCW-LLR project?

Crunching alert for new HP laptops (and possibly other brands):

My wife's new HP laptop has something called "HP Coolsense". It seems the laptop has an accelerometer. Coolsense uses this to determine whether the laptop is on a stable surface, or whether the laptop is on, you know, an actual lap.

It seems to also have additional temperature sensors on the case itself.

If it determines the laptop is on your lap, it will be more aggressive about keeping the case temperatures down. This can, of course, affect processing speed.

This feature can be easily turned off, but whether you want to or not is another question. I'm not going to turn it off on my wife's laptop. She's already angry at me for leaving the car's seat warmers on!

(On a serious note, the laptop is staying very cool, and very quite, crunching GCW-Sieve on all 4 cores. Impressively low power usage.)
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Coming up on 7 days, and the difference between first and second place in the team standings is less than 160K. That's out of 76 million, or about 0.2%.


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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Seven days done. Three to go!

Challenge: Isaac Newton's Birthday
App: 29 (GCW-Sieve)
(As of 2017-01-10 18:00:30 UTC)

1357924 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 1344811 (99%) / 0 (0%) / 13113 (1%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

90531 (7%) came back with some kind of an error. [90267 (7%) / 0 (0%) / 265 (0%)]
1078648 (79%) have returned a successful result. [1066027 (79%) / 0 (0%) / 12630 (1%)]
188824 (14%) are still in progress. [188606 (14%) / 0 (0%) / 219 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

119084 (11%) are pending validation. [117556 (11%) / 0 (0%) / 1537 (0%)]
959561 (89%) have been successfully validated. [948470 (88%) / 0 (0%) / 11091 (1%)]
1 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 1 (0%)]
2 (0%) are inconclusive. [1 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 1 (0%)]


There are 3274 hosts (up from 3117 yesterday) with 28336 cores (up from 25855 yesterday) participating in the challenge.

825 users (up from 798). 148 teams (up from 140).

That's an average of 8.7 cores per host (up from 8.3 yesterday), 4.0 computers per user (up from 3.9 yesterday), and 34.3 cores per user (up from 32.4 yesterday).

With the cores per host and cores per user averages going up dramatically in just one day, I'm guessing members of the top three teams have been adding cloud servers.

Yesterday I said we had done about 125% as much sieving during the challenge as we did in the 2+ months before the challenge. Today, that number is 147%. That's not a typo. In 24 hours we've sieved 22% as much as we did in over 2 months of sieving before the challenge started.
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

and 34.3 cores per user (down from 32.4 yesterday).

My computer died near the beginning of the challenge (probably the motherboard). It made me incredibly sad and means that I have not been contributing into the challenge as much as I otherwise would have been. I am glad to see such fierce numbers being pushed out. Great work everyone!
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How can it be that the TRP sieve between 8 and 9 was so low ?

and 34.3 cores per user (down from 32.4 yesterday).

I sense some powerful creepy pasta on this sentence...

I'm really hoping there is similar interest and attention to the SoB challenge in March. I really want to see that competed in my lifetime.

I hope so too.

How old are you guys? /JeppeSN :-)

Mike, since you are all in statistical data, can you tell us at the end of challenge how many factors we are removed . One statistical data more for you :)
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92*10^^1439761-1 NEAR-REPDIGIT PRIME :) :) :)
4 * 650^⁴⁹⁸¹⁰¹-1 CRUS PRIME
2022202116^¹³¹⁰⁷²+1 GENERALIZED FERMAT
Proud member of team Aggie The Pew. Go Aggie!

I'm really hoping there is similar interest and attention to the SoB challenge in March. I really want to see that competed in my lifetime.

I hope so too.

How old are you guys? /JeppeSN :-)

Or, you could interpret that as meaning, "I want to live a long, long time." :)

This is where I'm coming from. Given the number of years SoB has been running it'll be a very long time before all of the primes are found if there even are all of the primes to find.

This is where I'm coming from. Given the number of years SoB has been running it'll be a very long time before all of the primes are found if there even are all of the primes to find.

Look today CPU with AVX2 and look at computer before 10 years.

So everything is possible: in next 40 years, maybe we all have optical CPUs with compute speed we cannot imagine right now. And those CPU maybe solve SOB in few weeks.... who knows what will future give us :)

Mike, since you are all in statistical data, can you tell us at the end of challenge how many factors we are removed . One statistical data more for you :)