Talk:Largest known prime
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The original article presented the number, or what purported to be the number, or, come to think of it, just a long string of digits. This added up to close to four megabytes, and the only reason I can think of for presenting it would be that some people would say "Wow". That is, if they hadn't got bored waiting for the download, and if their browsers hadn't crashed. Suggestion: if the string of digits is important, provide a link to it on some other page. -- Hoary 11:36, 2005 Mar 30 (UTC)
- Yes, I agree completely. Good move, Hoary. BTW, did anybody check that number for correctness? I think the 3'588'172nd digit was off by one... :-) Lupo 11:42, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
-
- I can't find the link to it. Alphabetagamma 02:40, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] I give up! Verification of prime numbers take too long... (pun intended)
I tried checking it but I figured I'dd leave it to the Kool people at Karleton U.(it's actually a "C")(I'm their rival from Ottawa U.) I tried thinking of a way to include this information without to much contreversy. Anyone here, a regular editor, want to venture into adding the information about the verification of the number? The information is at http://www.magazine.carleton.ca/2004_Fall/1342.htm --CyclePat 00:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
p.s.: yes! someon has tried to verify it. --CyclePat 00:58, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
and the winner is... ? (But what exact number are they talking about, anyway ? ;-) --FvdP 02:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
To verify that :232,582,657 − 1 is really a prime number you have to use the Lukas-Lehmer method. It ll take more than 3 months in a P4. -- Magioladitis 17:55, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Date confusion
According to the article, the largest prime "as of January 2007"..."was confirmed to be a prime number on September 11, 2006." So for the last few months of 2006 there were others that were larger but got decertified? DMacks 04:41, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
- "as of January 2007" means the latest date the information was known to be current when the edit was made. It's February now and the record has not been broken, so an edit today could say as of February. See Wikipedia:As of for the use of the notation. PrimeHunter 11:58, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
- Ah that makes wiki-technical sense. It's a linguistic mess though. How about "The largest prime [[As of 2007|presently]] known..."? DMacks 16:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
- You can suggest changes at Wikipedia talk:As of. The idea is for the reader (including non-editors) to see when the information was known to be correct. I think the text should indicate that. The URL is not enough, because many will not see it. An article claim that something is "present" can quickly become wrong when the article is not updated immediately after a new event. There are lots of existing links saying "as of year" or "as of month year" and it seems easier to locate and maintain them with a standardized name, e.g. visible in the backlinks at Wikipedia:As of. I don't want to change the established name without consensus, and I wouldn't support any change which doesn't display the year. Note that some "as of year" links were added with a former year (e.g. from an old source) without knowing the status at the time of the edit. PrimeHunter 20:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
- My suggestion was simply to change the text displayed in the article so that the sentence makes more sense, not change away from using the template nor change the page to which the link points. DMacks 21:11, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
- You can suggest changes at Wikipedia talk:As of. The idea is for the reader (including non-editors) to see when the information was known to be correct. I think the text should indicate that. The URL is not enough, because many will not see it. An article claim that something is "present" can quickly become wrong when the article is not updated immediately after a new event. There are lots of existing links saying "as of year" or "as of month year" and it seems easier to locate and maintain them with a standardized name, e.g. visible in the backlinks at Wikipedia:As of. I don't want to change the established name without consensus, and I wouldn't support any change which doesn't display the year. Note that some "as of year" links were added with a former year (e.g. from an old source) without knowing the status at the time of the edit. PrimeHunter 20:59, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
- Ah that makes wiki-technical sense. It's a linguistic mess though. How about "The largest prime [[As of 2007|presently]] known..."? DMacks 16:34, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
--WOW! Nice artickle <gwallner1@googlemail.com> --213.102.115.221 (talk) 23:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
