Moon conjunct Venus on Earth Day

Check out this amazing imageof Venus as it appears from behind the moon this morning, as captured by Ted Judah-

Who says chess isn’t a blood sport?

Perhaps you recall from a couple of years back the chess stars’ nightclub fight… Chess queen triggers ‘Gormallygate’ … now some guy in Iowa has apparently killed a friend over an argument which started with a chess game. And of course it has frequently been used as a teaching tool for military tactics as well. Which is why I now play tiddlywinks instead. On the whole, it’s less dangerous, despite the possibility of losing an eye.

UCLA mathematicians discover a Mersenne prime with 13 million digits

UCLA group discovers humongous prime number

Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a [nearly]13 million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.

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The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.

“We’re delighted,” said UCLA’s Edson Smith, the leader of the effort. “Now we’re looking for the next one, despite the odds.”

It’s the eighth Mersenne prime discovered at UCLA.

Primes are numbers like three, seven and 11 that are divisible by only two whole positive numbers: themselves and one.

Mersenne primes — named for their discoverer, 17th century French mathematician Marin Mersenne — are expressed as 2P-1, or two to the power of “P” minus one. P is itself a prime number. For the new prime, P is 43,112,609.

The new prime isn’t expected to be published until next year, according to the article.

The following article- published about a week ago in Australia- Scientists find world’s largest prime numbers mentions a few more specifics on this number and also that a computer user in Germany found the second largest (so far) prime within a couple of weeks of the UCLA team.

Scientists in the US and Germany have found the two largest prime numbers ever calculated in a discovery which could dramatically increase the effectiveness of cryptographic systems.
The two numbers were discovered within a fortnight of each other by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search project, which has spent 12 years on the task.

The largest prime number, which has a whopping 12,978,189 digits, was discovered by a team from UCLA. The second, discovered by a computer user in Germany, has 11,185,272 digits.

And, if you want to see how the top primes stack up, check out this list of the top 20 (all Mersenne primes).

RIP David Foster Wallace

I was just thinking about his novel Infinite Jest a couple of days ago for some reason. Now, I see in the news that he hanged himself. His literary light will be greatly missed. I’m not going to make a jest in poor taste here about microwave ovens, though I did consider it. RIP David Foster Wallace.

Still around

Despite appearances to the contrary, I haven’t forgotten this blog, I’ve just been busy with a different project. It’ll probably be taking most of my spare time for the next few months, so don’t expect too many new posts here for awhile. As a 13th day of the month posting, though, here are a few search terms which I found interesting to see among the top hot trends searches for today:

In Quincy, MA, they are apparently searching for the following phrases:

satyagraha movement launched by gandhiji in south africa
at which place was gandhiji born
In New York City (and elsewhere), they are searching for solipsistic and also among the hot trends is free will astrology. That’s it for now; have a happy Wednesday the 13th.