Welcome to the Transit of Mercury Across the Sun Challenge

The ninth Challenge of the 2019 Challenge series is a 10 day challenge celebrating the Transit of Mercury Across the Sun. The challenge is being offered on the Prime Sierpinski Problem (LLR) application. The challenge will begin 1st November 2019 18:04 UTC and end 11th November 2019 18:04 UTC.

The transit of Mercury – the innermost planet of our solar system – will be visible on November 11, 2019. A transit occurs when Mercury passes directly in front of the sun. At such times, Mercury can been seen through telescopes with solar filters as a small black dot crossing the sun’s face. Mercury’s diameter is only 1/194th of that of the sun, as seen from Earth. That’s why the eclipse masters recommend using a telescope with a magnification of 50 to 100 times for witnessing the event.

Unless you are well-versed with the telescope and how to properly use solar filters, we advise you to seek out a public program via a nearby observatory or astronomy club.

Mercury will come into view on the sun’s face around 12:36 UTC. It’ll make a leisurely journey across the sun’s face, reaching greatest transit (closest to sun’s center) at approximately 15:20 UTC and finally exiting around 18:04 UTC. The entire 5 1/2 hour path across the sun will be visible across the U.S. East – with magnification and proper solar filters – while those in the U.S. West can observe the transit already in progress after sunrise.

The transit will be visible (at least in part) from most of the globe, with the exception of Indonesia, most of Asia, and Australia. Mercury takes some 5 1/2 hours to cross the sun’s disk, and this transit of Mercury is entirely visible (given clear skies) from eastern North America, South America, southern tip of Greenland, and far-western Africa.

To participate in the Challenge, please select only the Prime Sierpinski Problem LLR (PSP) project in your PrimeGrid preferences section.

Application builds are available for Linux 32 and 64 bit, Windows 32 and 64 bit and MacIntel. Intel CPUs with FMA3 capabilities (Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake, Coffee Lake) will have a very large advantage, and Intel CPUs with dual AVX-512 (certain recent Intel Skylake-X and Xeon CPUs) will be the fastest.

ATTENTION: The primality program LLR is CPU intensive; so, it is vital to have a stable system with good cooling. It does not tolerate "even the slightest of errors." Please see this post for more details on how you can "stress test" your computer. Tasks on one CPU core will take 18 hours on fast/newer computers and 3 days+ on slower/older computers. If your computer is highly overclocked, please consider "stress testing" it. Sieving is an excellent alternative for computers that are not able to LLR. :)

Highly overclocked Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake, Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake (i.e., Intel Core i7, i5, and i3 -4xxx or better) computers running the application will see fastest times. Note that PSP is running the latest AVX-512 version of LLR which takes full advantage of the features of these newer CPUs. It's faster than the previous LLR app and draws more power and produces more heat. If you have certain recent Intel Skylake-X and Xeon CPUs, especially if it's overclocked or has overclocked memory, and haven't run the new AVX-512 LLR before, we strongly suggest running it before the challenge while you are monitoring the temperatures.

Please, please, please make sure your machines are up to the task.

Multi-threading optimisation instructions

Those looking to maximise their computer's performance during this challenge, or when running LLR in general, may find this information useful.

• Your mileage may vary. Before the challenge starts, take some time and experiment and see what works best on your computer.
  
• If you have an Intel CPU with hyperthreading, either turn off the hyperthreading in the BIOS, or set BOINC to use 50% of the processors.
  
  
  • If you're using a GPU for other tasks, it may be beneficial to leave hyperthreading on in the BIOS and instead tell BOINC to use 50% of the CPU's. This will allow one of the hyperthreads to service the GPU.

  
  

• The new multi-threading system is now live. This will allow you to select multi-threading from the project preferences web page. No more app_config.xml. It works like this:
  
  
  • In the preferences selection, there are selections for "max jobs" and "max cpus", similar to the settings in app_config.
    
  • Unlike app_config, these two settings apply to ALL apps. You can't chose 1 thread for SGS and 4 for SoB. When you change apps, you need to change your multithreading settings if you want to run a different number of threads.
    
  • There will be individual settings for each venue (location).
    
  • This will eliminate the problem of BOINC downloading 1 task for every core.
    
  • The hyperthreading control isn't possible at this time.
    
  • The "max cpus" control will only apply to LLR apps. The "max jobs" control applies to all apps.

  
  

• If you want to continue to use app_config.xml for LLR tasks, you need to change it if you want it to work. Please see this message for more information.
  
• Some people have observed that when using multithreaded LLR, hyperthreading is actually beneficial. We encourage you to experiment and see what works best for you.

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 at the very top, above the countdown clock.

Scoring Information

Scores will be kept for individuals and teams. Only tasks issued AFTER 1st November 2019 18:04 UTC and received BEFORE 11th November 2019 18:04 UTC will be considered for challenge 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 kindly ask users "moving on" to ABORT their tasks instead of DETACHING, RESETTING, or PAUSING.

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

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

About the Prime Sierpinski Problem

Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński (14 March 1882 — 21 October 1969), a Polish mathematician, was known for outstanding contributions to set theory, number theory, theory of functions and topology. It is in number theory where we find the Sierpinski problem.

Basically, the Sierpinski problem is "What is the smallest Sierpinski number" and the prime Sierpinski problem is "What is the smallest 'prime' Sierpinski number?"

First we look at Proth numbers (named after the French mathematician François Proth). A Proth number is a number of the form k*2^n+1 where k is odd, n is a positive integer, and 2^n>k.

A Sierpinski number is an odd k such that the Proth number k*2^n+1 is not prime for all n. For example, 3 is not a Sierpinski number because n=2 produces a prime number (3*2^2+1=13). In 1962, John Selfridge proved that 78,557 is a Sierpinski number...meaning he showed that for all n, 78557*2^n+1 was not prime.

Most number theorists believe that 78,557 is the smallest Sierpinski number, but it hasn't yet been proven. In order to prove that it is the smallest Sierpinski number, it has to be shown that every single k less than 78,557 is not a Sierpinski number, and to do that, some n must be found that makes k*2^n+1 prime.

The smallest proven 'prime' Sierpinski number is 271,129. In order to prove that it is the smallest prime Sierpinski number, it has to be shown that every single 'prime' k less than 271,129 is not a Sierpinski number, and to do that, some n must be found that makes k*2^n+1 prime.

Previously, PrimeGrid was working in cooperation with Seventeen or Bust on the Sierpinski problem and working with the Prime Sierpinski Project on the 'prime' Sierpinski problem. Although both Seventeen or Bust and the Prime Sierpinski Project have ceased operations, PrimeGrid continues the search independently to solve both conjectures.

The following k's remain for each project:

• Prime Sierpinski Project
  

For more information about Sierpinski, Sierpinski number, and the Sierpinsk problem, please see these resources:

• Wacław Franciszek Sierpiński (WIKI)
  
• Sierpinski number / The Sierpinski problem (WIKI)
  
• The Sierpinski problem (Prothsearch)
  

Most recently discovered primes:

258317*2^5450519+1 is prime! (found by Sloth@PSP on 28/7/2008)
90527*2^9162167+1 is prime! (found by Bold_Seeker@PSP on 19/6/2010)
10223*2^31172165+1 discovered as part of our Seventeen or Bust subproject, eliminating 10223 from both the Sierpinski Problem and the Prime Sierpinski Problem, by Szabolcs Péter (SyP). (official announcement)
168451*2^19375200+1 is prime! Found by Ben Maloney (paleseptember) on September 17th, 2017. (official announcement)
____________

Will you be able to see the transit with the naked eye, using appropriate protection as you would for a solar eclipse? Or is Mercury too small?

EDIT: Nope, it's too small to see the transit without some type of telescope or binoculars or something else to magnify the image.

Now, I need to check and see if this topic is intentionally read-only. Thanks to those who tried to respond... and couldn't.
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

I'm hoping that this trick, which I did for the last solar eclipse, might work. But Mercury is really tiny.

The challenge starts tomorrow, so this is a good time to remind everyone:

Please remember that this challenge starts 4 minutes after the hour! Tasks sent at 18:00 won't count, and these are long tasks, so you don't want to waste a lot of time because you started 240 seconds too early!!!

Also, for anyone wishing to throw a few *free* cloud servers at the challenge for the first time, most of the cloud providers out there have introductory offers where you get a certain amount of free computing services for a month (or longer, in some cases). A few challenges ago, I wrote up a guide to using Digital Ocean, one of the less expensive and less complicated cloud providers. Their $50 credit (with the referral code) doesn't sound like a lot, but it's enough to run ten 3-core AVX512 servers for the entire 10 day challenge.

An executive summary of the process is here, and the full instructions can be found here: https://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=8831&nowrap=true#133770

If you do use a cloud computing service, please remember to delete/destroy all the servers when you're done with them. You get charged for them for as long as they exist, whether they're running or not. You have to completely delete them to stop the billing.

Besides Digital Ocean, other services that offer free introductory credit are Amazon Web Services, Google Computing Platform, and Azure (Microsoft). I'm sure there's others as well.

Be warned, though: adding extra computing power to the challenge at the click of a button can be very addictive!

____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

With Mercury being about 40% of the diameter of Venus, you can imagine how difficult it will be when projected onto a piece of paper. Here is my result from 2016: http://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Planet-Mer-Transit-2016-Ingress.htm.

Both of the above (filtered) results are at 2400mm focal length which is both fairly long and necessary for such work involving the interior planets.

The only satellite mission to Mercury was Mariner 10 which made three fly-bys between March 1974 and March 1975 when it photographed half its surface.

Not sure if this is the right place to ask. Spinning up a few Digital Ocean instances for fun.

cat /proc/cpuinfo reports a gold cpu with the avx512 flags, but they all only report a single core. I've tried both the 3 CPU and 2 CPU sizes from a few regions. Primegrid will only download a single task, and won't download multi-threaded tasks.

Any ideas?

It works for me...

root@debian-s-3vcpu-1gb-nyc1-01:~# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 85
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6140 CPU @ 2.30GHz
stepping : 4
microcode : 0x1
cpu MHz : 2294.608
cache size : 25344 KB
physical id : 0
siblings : 1
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 0
initial apicid : 0
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good nopl cpuid tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq vmx ssse3 fma cx1 6 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c r drand hypervisor lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault invpcid_single pti ssbd i brs ibpb tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 h le avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflusho pt clwb avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves pku ospke md_c lear
bugs : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf mds swapgs
bogomips : 4589.21
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor : 1
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 85
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6140 CPU @ 2.30GHz
stepping : 4
microcode : 0x1
cpu MHz : 2294.608
cache size : 25344 KB
physical id : 1
siblings : 1
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 1
initial apicid : 1
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good nopl cpuid tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq vmx ssse3 fma cx1 6 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c r drand hypervisor lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault invpcid_single pti ssbd i brs ibpb tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 h le avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflusho pt clwb avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves pku ospke md_c lear
bugs : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf mds swapgs
bogomips : 4589.21
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

processor : 2
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 85
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 6140 CPU @ 2.30GHz
stepping : 4
microcode : 0x1
cpu MHz : 2294.608
cache size : 25344 KB
physical id : 2
siblings : 1
core id : 0
cpu cores : 1
apicid : 2
initial apicid : 2
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon rep_good nopl cpuid tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq vmx ssse3 fma cx1 6 pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c r drand hypervisor lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault invpcid_single pti ssbd i brs ibpb tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 h le avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rtm mpx avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflusho pt clwb avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves pku ospke md_c lear
bugs : cpu_meltdown spectre_v1 spectre_v2 spec_store_bypass l1tf mds swapgs
bogomips : 4589.21
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management:

Will you be able to see the transit with the naked eye, using appropriate protection as you would for a solar eclipse? Or is Mercury too small?

EDIT: Nope, it's too small to see the transit without some type of telescope or binoculars or something else to magnify the image.

Their $50 credit (with the referral code) doesn't sound like a lot, but it's enough to run ten 3-core AVX512 servers for the entire 10 day challenge.

Michael, I'd be somewhat cautious this time for the number of droplets. In last challenge, after signing up, I spun up 9 droplets and within a day, my account was locked by DigitalOcean Admin, stating a high number of droplets creation activity along with high load, which they deemed as "unusual". Eventually, it was unlocked after 7 days, once I stated my usage. But, not before that eating up a significant portion of free $50 credit (9 droplets turned off and not destroyed for 7 days).

This time, I'm taking a conservative approach of maxing out to 5-6 droplets and see what happens. I just want to share the experience which I had and in no way want to influence others on their decisioning for the challenge. :)

has it already started? YES!!
GO GO GO!!!
____________
Sysadm@Nbg
my current lucky number: 113856050^65536 + 1
PSA-PRPNet-Stats-URL: http://u-g-f.de/PRPNet/

Day 1 is complete!


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-02 18:31:49 UTC)

8079 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 8074 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 5 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

428 (5%) were aborted. [428 (5%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
737 (9%) came back with some kind of an error. [737 (9%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
778 (10%) have returned a successful result. [775 (10%) / 0 (0%) / 3 (0%)]
6136 (76%) are still in progress. [6134 (76%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

654 (84%) are pending validation. [652 (84%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]
124 (16%) have been successfully validated. [123 (16%) / 0 (0%) / 1 (0%)]
0 (0%) were invalid. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
0 (0%) are inconclusive. [0 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21221890. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 1.15% as much as it had prior to the challenge!


Pavel Atnashev has focused his computing farm on this challenge, and currently has a sizeable lead in both the individual and team standings. Will anyone be able to catch him?

Will we be able to eliminate any k's from the conjecture? We're certainly going to try!
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Finishing just one single task is incredibly hard. It will take centuries before these Sierpiński-related problems/conjectures are solved. /JeppeSN

Two days are done; eigth remain:


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-03 21:26:37 UTC)

11683 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 11672 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 11 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

1241 (11%) were aborted. [1241 (11%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1074 (9%) came back with some kind of an error. [1074 (9%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
2619 (22%) have returned a successful result. [2610 (22%) / 0 (0%) / 9 (0%)]
6749 (58%) are still in progress. [6747 (58%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

1844 (70%) are pending validation. [1837 (70%) / 0 (0%) / 7 (0%)]
767 (29%) have been successfully validated. [765 (29%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]
1 (0%) were invalid. [1 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
7 (0%) are inconclusive. [7 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21313013. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 1.58% as much as it had prior to the challenge!

____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Day 3 is done!


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-04 19:11:49 UTC)

14278 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 14263 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 15 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

1367 (10%) were aborted. [1367 (10%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1410 (10%) came back with some kind of an error. [1410 (10%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
4255 (30%) have returned a successful result. [4242 (30%) / 0 (0%) / 13 (0%)]
7246 (51%) are still in progress. [7244 (51%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

2507 (59%) are pending validation. [2498 (59%) / 0 (0%) / 9 (0%)]
1728 (41%) have been successfully validated. [1724 (41%) / 0 (0%) / 4 (0%)]
4 (0%) were invalid. [4 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
16 (0%) are inconclusive. [16 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21384128. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 1.92% as much as it had prior to the challenge!

4255 tasks have been returned so far. That's over 1400 per day. Normal is less than 100 per day.

Impressive!
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

Just published,
Guide to the November 11th Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
https://www.universetoday.com/143562/our-guide-to-the-november-11th-2019-transit-of-mercury-across-the-sun/
Remember safety first!

We are halfway done! 40% done!


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-05 18:46:47 UTC)

16471 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 16452 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 19 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

1889 (11%) were aborted. [1889 (11%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1446 (9%) came back with some kind of an error. [1446 (9%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
5968 (36%) have returned a successful result. [5951 (36%) / 0 (0%) / 17 (0%)]
7168 (44%) are still in progress. [7166 (44%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

3103 (52%) are pending validation. [3092 (52%) / 0 (0%) / 11 (0%)]
2831 (47%) have been successfully validated. [2825 (47%) / 0 (0%) / 6 (0%)]
11 (0%) were invalid. [11 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
23 (0%) are inconclusive. [23 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21437782. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 2.17% as much as it had prior to the challenge!


That's nearly 15 times the normal rate for PSP.
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

We are halfway done!

We are halfway done!

Even better, we're only 40% done :)

We are halfway(?) done!


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-06 19:03:11 UTC)

18653 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 18629 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 24 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

2002 (11%) were aborted. [2002 (11%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1577 (8%) came back with some kind of an error. [1577 (8%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
7883 (42%) have returned a successful result. [7861 (42%) / 0 (0%) / 22 (0%)]
7191 (39%) are still in progress. [7189 (39%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

3453 (44%) are pending validation. [3441 (44%) / 0 (0%) / 12 (0%)]
4384 (56%) have been successfully validated. [4374 (55%) / 0 (0%) / 10 (0%)]
21 (0%) were invalid. [21 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
25 (0%) are inconclusive. [25 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21507573. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 2.51% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

<expletives deleted>

Fuunny??!!

hope majkl goetz willl delete your and my comments )

1) i'm Russian
2) it's the final phrase of favorite boneym's song Rasputin
3) it was said just to note that Pavel Atnashev(sure using national equipment) demonstrated this miracle NOT IN Russian BOINC project(such as Rake Search, OLDK and so on) BUT here in Forein Land)

6 days done!


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-07 20:37:54 UTC)

21366 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 21338 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 28 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

2579 (12%) were aborted. [2579 (12%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1650 (8%) came back with some kind of an error. [1650 (8%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
9861 (46%) have returned a successful result. [9835 (46%) / 0 (0%) / 26 (0%)]
7276 (34%) are still in progress. [7274 (34%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

3863 (39%) are pending validation. [3849 (39%) / 0 (0%) / 14 (0%)]
5945 (60%) have been successfully validated. [5933 (60%) / 0 (0%) / 12 (0%)]
28 (0%) were invalid. [28 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
25 (0%) are inconclusive. [25 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21580493. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 2.86% as much as it had prior to the challenge!

____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

It is a Russian miracle.
I've tried to estimate how many cores he has.
He's putting 10 threads on each task and getting 40% CPU efficiency,
where as I get 95% efficiency using 4 threads on a 4-core system; and 83% efficiency on a 6-core system running 2 tasks simultaneously with 3 threads each.

His total throughput is like having about 2900 cores: (his tasks completed: 1677)/(my tasks completed: 13) * (my cores: 10) = 1290; 1290 * (my avg efficiency: ~ 90%) / (his avg efficiency: 40%) =~ 2900 cores.

The straightforward calculation of his tasks in progress (288) times 10 threads gives the answer of 2880 cores.

I have 100% task cache, so you need to cut that in half. 56+88 tasks running.

How much of the executable needs to be cache-resident to complete a single iteration of LLR? BOINC Manager shows the working set size is over 90 MB, so there's potential speedup by having a thread dedicated to pre-reading portions of the executable to ensure it occupies L3 just before it is used. That co-routine would be tiny and fit in another core's L1. But I'm unsure what the cache-coherency protocol is - does cache line occupancy in L2 prevent it's eviction from L3?

7 days done; three to go.


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-08 18:08:43 UTC)

23956 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 23924 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 32 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

2969 (12%) were aborted. [2969 (12%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1738 (7%) came back with some kind of an error. [1738 (7%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
11765 (49%) have returned a successful result. [11735 (49%) / 0 (0%) / 30 (0%)]
7484 (31%) are still in progress. [7482 (31%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

4022 (34%) are pending validation. [4012 (34%) / 0 (0%) / 10 (0%)]
7666 (65%) have been successfully validated. [7646 (65%) / 0 (0%) / 20 (0%)]
33 (0%) were invalid. [33 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
44 (0%) are inconclusive. [44 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21663416. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.25% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

WOW! all on 3 Hosts with 4 Cores.
Quad CPU Q9400, i7-2600K, i7-2600K Power House indeed.
1 Pavel Atnashev Ural Federal University 58 032 294.67 1 884
http://www.primegrid.com/hosts_user.php?userid=914937

WOW! all on 3 Hosts with 4 Cores.
Quad CPU Q9400, i7-2600K, i7-2600K Power House indeed.
1 Pavel Atnashev Ural Federal University 58 032 294.67 1 884
http://www.primegrid.com/hosts_user.php?userid=914937

The Core2Quad is running at 3.4THz. ;)

WOW! all on 3 Hosts with 4 Cores.
Quad CPU Q9400, i7-2600K, i7-2600K Power House indeed.
1 Pavel Atnashev Ural Federal University 58 032 294.67 1 884
http://www.primegrid.com/hosts_user.php?userid=914937

The Core2Quad is running at 3.4THz. ;)

WOW! all on 3 Hosts with 4 Cores.
Quad CPU Q9400, i7-2600K, i7-2600K Power House indeed.
1 Pavel Atnashev Ural Federal University 58 032 294.67 1 884
http://www.primegrid.com/hosts_user.php?userid=914937

The Core2Quad is running at 3.4THz. ;)

WOW! all on 3 Hosts with 4 Cores.
Quad CPU Q9400, i7-2600K, i7-2600K Power House indeed.
1 Pavel Atnashev Ural Federal University 58 032 294.67 1 884
http://www.primegrid.com/hosts_user.php?userid=914937

The Core2Quad is running at 3.4THz. ;)

Q9400 = Quantum 9400!

WOW! all on 3 Hosts with 4 Cores.
Quad CPU Q9400, i7-2600K, i7-2600K Power House indeed.
1 Pavel Atnashev Ural Federal University 58 032 294.67 1 884
http://www.primegrid.com/hosts_user.php?userid=914937

The Core2Quad is running at 3.4THz. ;)

Q9400 = Quantum 9400!

So why bother with this long-running LLR algorithm when you can just factor it in an instant?

The efficiency of Shor's algorithm is due to the efficiency of the quantum Fourier transform, and modular exponentiation by repeated squarings.

Eight days done!

Two to go.


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-09 20:10:39 UTC)

26268 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 26232 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 36 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

3102 (12%) were aborted. [3102 (12%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1815 (7%) came back with some kind of an error. [1815 (7%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
13964 (53%) have returned a successful result. [13930 (53%) / 0 (0%) / 34 (0%)]
7387 (28%) are still in progress. [7385 (28%) / 0 (0%) / 2 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

4431 (32%) are pending validation. [4419 (32%) / 0 (0%) / 12 (0%)]
9433 (68%) have been successfully validated. [9411 (67%) / 0 (0%) / 22 (0%)]
48 (0%) were invalid. [48 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
52 (0%) are inconclusive. [52 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21727832. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.56% as much as it had prior to the challenge!
____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

It's the last day! There's less than 21 hours remaining.


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-10 21:32:24 UTC)

28717 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 28677 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 40 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

3811 (13%) were aborted. [3811 (13%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1930 (7%) came back with some kind of an error. [1930 (7%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
16179 (56%) have returned a successful result. [16140 (56%) / 0 (0%) / 39 (0%)]
6797 (24%) are still in progress. [6796 (24%) / 0 (0%) / 1 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

4414 (27%) are pending validation. [4401 (27%) / 0 (0%) / 13 (0%)]
11655 (72%) have been successfully validated. [11629 (72%) / 0 (0%) / 26 (0%)]
60 (0%) were invalid. [60 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
50 (0%) are inconclusive. [50 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21790046. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 3.85% as much as it had prior to the challenge!



____________
My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

With less than a day remaining in the challenge, it's time to remind everyone...

At the Conclusion of the Challenge

When the challenge completes, we would prefer users "moving on" to finish those tasks they have downloaded, if not then please ABORT the WU's (and then UPDATE the PrimeGrid project) 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 a 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.

Likewise, if you're shutting down the computer for an extended period of time, or deleting the VM (Virtual Machine), please ABORT all remaining tasks first. Also, be aware that merely shutting off a cloud server doesn't stop the billing. You have to destroy/delete the server if you don't want to continue to be charged for it.

Thank you!
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1

So, we're nearing about 4 % increase in the leading edge. Since higher n require more work, what would be the work % increase in the project? This would be an interesting statistics to also see for the challenges.

I would guess it could easily be double than the increase in the leading edge? So could we have work-wise advanced the project something like over 10 %?

Regarding the transit, I look up and all I can see are clouds everywhere :(

I tried my projection trick, but I didn't see any spot before my eyes. Which, I suppose, is both good and bad.

We are done!


Challenge: Transit of Mercury Across the Sun
App: 8 (PSP-LLR)
(As of 2019-11-11 18:31:25 UTC)

30083 tasks have been sent out. [CPU/GPU/anonymous_platform: 30041 (100%) / 0 (0%) / 42 (0%)]

Of those tasks that have been sent out:

4486 (15%) were aborted. [4486 (15%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
1946 (6%) came back with some kind of an error. [1946 (6%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
18324 (61%) have returned a successful result. [18283 (61%) / 0 (0%) / 41 (0%)]
5277 (18%) are still in progress. [5276 (18%) / 0 (0%) / 1 (0%)]

Of the tasks that have been returned successfully:

4134 (23%) are pending validation. [4123 (23%) / 0 (0%) / 11 (0%)]
14026 (77%) have been successfully validated. [13996 (76%) / 0 (0%) / 30 (0%)]
74 (0%) were invalid. [74 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]
90 (0%) are inconclusive. [90 (0%) / 0 (0%) / 0 (0%)]

The current leading edge (i.e., latest work unit for which work has actually been sent out to a host) is n=21821837. The leading edge was at n=20981446 at the beginning of the challenge. Since the challenge started, the leading edge has advanced 4.01% as much as it had prior to the challenge!


18324 tasks were returned. That's 18 times what I would normally expect to see in ten days. Great job everyone!
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My lucky number is 75898⁵²⁴²⁸⁸+1