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103 Comments
- whahaa, on 09/27/2008, -2/+37prime numbers are a vital part of cryptography, which is a vital part of national security. why do you hate freedom?
- wonderchemist, on 09/27/2008, -1/+35Like posting on Digg?
- fafnir314, on 09/26/2008, -2/+33That's a pretty bit of money for finding a prime number
- SaumZ, on 09/26/2008, -1/+28Running that program on a computer is just like playing the lottery - someone is bound to "win" sometime.
- Desurivative, on 09/27/2008, -2/+21Oh, you ignorant son of a bitch.
Just because you have some kind of "SKOOL IS 4 LOZERZ" attitude and don't understand how our society has benefited from mathematics (or in this particular case, the uses of prime numbers for cryptography, for instance) doesn't mean there is nothing useful for humanity here. Somehow I doubt whatever occupation you have for yourself as a corporate drone or sales monkey or whatever benefits society as much as you would like to think.
Also, many fields and discoveries in mathematics have been made throughout history before practical applications had been found for them. Boolean algebra and all sorts of discrete math, for instance, were conceived before we had digital computers, in some cases with the idea "wouldn't it be neat if we had machines that could follow these sets of rules...?" But you're probably one of these people who thinks computers run on magic and only plays games.
TL;DR ***** you. - WalkerTXclocker, on 09/27/2008, -2/+19From wikipedia:
"For a long time, number theory in general, and the study of prime numbers in particular, was seen as the canonical example of pure mathematics, with no applications outside of the self-interest of studying the topic. In particular, number theorists such as British mathematician G. H. Hardy prided themselves on doing work that had absolutely no military significance.[19] However, this vision was shattered in the 1970s, when it was publicly announced that prime numbers could be used as the basis for the creation of public key cryptography algorithms. Prime numbers are also used for hash tables and pseudorandom number generators.
Some rotor machines were designed with a different number of pins on each rotor, with the number of pins on any one rotor either prime, or coprime to the number of pins on any other rotor. This helped generate the full cycle of possible rotor positions before repeating any position."
See, it's not that hard. - inactive, on 09/27/2008, -2/+17Mathematicians and the subject of math is probably the most beneficial gift to the development of our civilization.
- eSentrik, on 09/27/2008, -0/+13Brute force algorithm + super computer + waiting FTW?
- cxt70, on 09/27/2008, -7/+19math... ***** yea!
- unique172, on 09/27/2008, -0/+11Please explain what you mean? Every mathematician I know, especially number and set theorists, take Godel very seriously, since his findings are painfully obvious at the upper reaches of mathematics (as one bumps against the Axiom of Choice, etc.)
Additionally, many number theorists are also programmers, since the only way to find such large numbers and verify their primality is to use computers. - metapop, on 09/27/2008, -3/+14gotta catch 'em all!
- jpmoney03, on 09/27/2008, -4/+13data encryption
- McMaster88, on 09/27/2008, -2/+11haha, that's epic. +1 for the spin.
- Poggins, on 09/27/2008, -2/+10Because posting on digg is so much more helpful to society, right?
- NathanielJ, on 09/27/2008, -0/+6No, that's not why the reward is $100,000. Prime numbers of a few hundred digits are useful for cryptography. Prime numbers with millions of digits are absolutely useless for RSA encryption because
1) they take too long to compute with
2) only a handful of them are known, so someone wishing to break the cryptography would only have to check a handful of them - Typhoon2009, on 09/27/2008, -2/+8In all seriousness: what's the significance of this? Not trying to sound like a dick, I'm curious to know what advances in *whatever* could come from discovery of rare prime numbers.
- unique172, on 09/27/2008, -0/+6The excitement of the find only makes sense in a historical context. There is not now, nor has ever been, an efficient way to produce larger prime numbers. Finding large primes and proving that they are prime (neither of which is trivial) is an active area of mathematical research, and I suspect every mathematician in this field hopes they will eventually find a way to produce primes efficiently, as well as factor large numbers.
Ironically, progress in this field is actually detrimental to data encryption, since the security of the RSA encryption algorithm depends on our inability to factor large numbers. There are similar cash prizes for finding methods to do so, since the giver of the prize would rather pay the money and know the state of the industry than continue to use an algorithm that's been compromised. - danielttt, on 09/27/2008, -0/+5You need to work on vocabulary now...
- inactive, on 09/27/2008, -4/+9Prime number is actually very a very important foundation to our modern encryption algorithm.
- inactive, on 09/27/2008, -0/+4Does your idiotic mind even realize how many of today's gadgets and technologies started out as obscure scientific discoveries and theories?
- disrupter, on 09/27/2008, -1/+4you live up to your name
- danielttt, on 09/27/2008, -2/+5There are important things in this world small minds cannot grasp. Lack of education exacerbates this. Lack of common sense, though, tends to thoroughly illuminate respondents on these related fora for their imbecilic inclinations as I'm sure you would agree.
- noumuon, on 09/27/2008, -0/+3"I may not be the president, but I still want him to get things done." and sitting in your room, thinking wishfully while trolling on digg really helps.
- EricJ2190, on 09/27/2008, -0/+3It will if you use that whole number as your PIN.
- inactive, on 09/27/2008, -0/+3Psst... he's trolling.
- NathanielJ, on 09/27/2008, -0/+3That's because RSA encryption is based on the fact that we believe it is "hard" to factor large numbers. If an efficient way to factor large numbers were discovered, then all internet encryption would be broken (as well as various other encrypted mediums), thus making bank website etc completely insecure. Hence the supposed economic collapse that you mentioned. The "science would greatly advance" thing I imagine is a mistake on the part of the person who said it, since it is commonly believed that number factoring is NP-complete, but that's not actually known.
- noumuon, on 09/27/2008, -1/+4except, the prime numbers are countable. therefore the set of prime numbers is as large as the set of natural numbers and integers. therefore you can argue that the primes are as equally as common as the natural numbers.
- inactive, on 09/27/2008, -1/+4No, primes that large are totally useless for data encryption.
- Poggins, on 09/27/2008, -4/+7Yeah! Screw medicine and all that *****.
- xGeneric, on 09/27/2008, -0/+3Go Go Prime95!
- NathanielJ, on 09/27/2008, -0/+3Infinity. Check Wiki for a simple proof.
- bwdd, on 09/27/2008, -0/+3Well, can you imagine how long it took them to find it?
- inactive, on 09/27/2008, -0/+2Yeah, The Onion really loves that prime number humor.
- RedneckRandy, on 09/30/2008, -0/+2Actually Danielttt, despite my screenname I am a thinking invidual who happens to have an engineering degree and a fine grasp of mathematics and science. I understand that mathematical constructs can have non-obvious applications and even unforeseen applications sometime in the future. However, I think this particular finding is absolutely useless. As digg1520 said, good luck encrypting with a 10million digit number. Perhaps it is you who is the small minded imbecil who judges someone simply on their name. I raised a valid question. You are the one who responded with idiotic non-sensical self-righteous egotistical drivel that did not answer my question at all.
- digg1520, on 09/27/2008, -0/+2Good luck encrypting with 10.000.000 digit long prime numbers.
- OrangeTide, on 09/27/2008, -0/+2When can we look for non-Mersenne primes?
- dokon, on 09/27/2008, -1/+3Except that there is no guarantee that there are more Mersenne primes.
- edwinjose, on 09/27/2008, -0/+2What I meant was: Mathematicians of the past wanted proofs for everything. But nowadays they are more willing to accept that there are things that are very very likely to be true but might never have a proof.
So the new mathematicians use conjectures that have been verified to be true for a large number of cases using a computer, in the hopes of hitting on other very very probable truths.
Sorry to sound so philosophical. - inactive, on 09/27/2008, -0/+2prime numbers!
- inactive, on 09/27/2008, -1/+3I understand that Nathaniel, I'm speaking about the applications of prime number in general, in defense to masaks' claim that this field of work is not practical in any way.
- kelmaster1, on 09/27/2008, -0/+2go GIMPS!
- xcbxcb, on 09/27/2008, -4/+6Typing unintelligible prattle doesn't make you smart or clever or high-minded or interesting.
It makes you a *****. - OrangeTide, on 09/27/2008, -0/+2Yea. Prime numbers are useless until you need some prime numbers for algorithms, particle physics, chemistry, genetics, mechanical engineering, ...
- danielttt, on 09/27/2008, -1/+3supermanly ... Glad to see you've discovered google, wikipedia and the copy/paste function on your keyboard. You might now start working on an ability to understand satirical discourse.
xcbxcb ... I'm sorry if If your vocabulary (the words you know how to use) stops you from understanding what's I wrote above. I certainly understand why you relate to RedneckRandy. I am curious though, why would you presume me to be homosexual. Where's the connection between one's ability to write a simple sentence with multisyllabic wording and homosexuality....?
I resent people who don't use their heads. My response is intended to illustrate the RedneckRandy's narrowminded kneejerk reply to something he doesn't understand. I am sorry he lacks the curiousity to look into things further. His public vulgarty is offensive to me and begged for a satirical response. I don't pretend to be of anything more than average intelligence. - NathanielJ, on 09/27/2008, -1/+3Dear god, if someone else says this, I'm going to kill something.
Prime numbers with a few hundred digits are useful for RSA encryption. Prime numbers with millions of digits are NOT. - NathanielJ, on 09/27/2008, -2/+3Yes, they are rare, despite there being infinitely many of them. To see this mathematically, it can be proven that as N goes to infinity, if you pick a random number (uniformly) from the set {1, 2, ..., N}, then the probability that the number you pick is prime is 0.
- nmezib, on 09/27/2008, -0/+1lol thank you Moose, I was totally being a troll. :P people love getting defensive over their babies
and for your information, Desurivative, I'm in toxicology research at the University of Pittsburgh graduate school of public health. We study levels of arsenical contaminants in drinking water around the world and in the US, with the hopes of providing treatments against chronic Arsenic exposure.
I know prime numbers are an indispensible part of most of science. Jesus, how stupid did you REALLY think I am? - unique172, on 09/27/2008, -0/+1link?
- inactive, on 09/27/2008, -5/+6In other news, UCLA mathematicians are still not getting laid...
- NathanielJ, on 09/27/2008, -1/+2@noumuon - Yeah, I know they're both countable, I never said otherwise. However, cardinality is not the only way to compare sets of infinite size. The Cantor set on [0,1] has the same cardinality (uncountable) as the whole interval [0,1], yet it has Lebesgue measure 0, which means that if you pick a number uniformly at random from the interval [0,1], then there's a 0% chance that you will pick a number from the Cantor set, even though the sets have the same cardinality.
This is the same thing, except with countable sets. -
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