h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Julzes!

I saw you online a day or so ago, and wanted to touch base (any base ).

You might remember, I gave you a short list of some of my favourite anagrams, back then. I haven't yet found the thread we chatted on years ago, so here I am.

When I saw this, "the quirky anagram of the name of the country-name 'Tunisia', 'I is tuna'." in your introduction, I couldn't resist checking the word out for myself - after all, there couldn't be that many sensible rearrangements.

It seems the gods of coincidence have given their assessment of me once again.

It's confirmed: "I is a nut" .... but I don't mind.

Take care of yourself.

Okay.

Here is a good new one, sort of, though it does not strike as particularly coincidental (just focused on 19 and its multiple 57 (Think of where the new USA Sec. of State's wife's first husband was Senator (and meat condiments, but this is just a tad coincidental concerning where I reside anyway))):

I cannot spare time for all the details, but if you want to generate a sequence of increasing primes, by laying out 19 as a sum of nineteen 1s you can go from that prime through 56 more by selecting which of the addends not to multiply by each prime from 2 through 263 (Obviously, there is some flexibility at the start). Right now, empirically, it appears this record may not be broken by some larger starting prime, something I will be trying to prove rigorously (with a program, not on paper) unless a large surprise comes out of the program running now.

I think we share that wonderful sensation we feel as we make a discovery, but my maths just isn't up to comprehending the significance of your work.

I'm pleased for you that the pirate understands.

All the best, fellow researcher.

The next record--there is one, so I won't be proving anything--occurs with 80671 addends forming a sequence of 62 primes.

Thanks, Your Rudeness!

I don't even understand what a prime number is
but feel it necessary to comment that I recently
heard on some TV science show that some
has just discovered a new prime number with
over 17 million digits.

~jwf~

I mean of 63 primes.

Yes, numbers of the form 2^p-1, where p itself is prime, are particularly susceptible to testing for their primality status. They are named after a monk named Mersenne who was the 16th-century analogue of a scholarly journal in his communications efforts between scholars throughout Europe. Most of the time for the last several decades the largest proven prime has been the largest Mersenne prime known. BTW, there is a gap of some size which is not yet fully tested, so there is quite possibly at least one Mersenne prime smaller than the one just discovered that has not been found. So far, there are 48 known Mersenne primes and they do come in around once a year, so it's a fair bet these years that the number of them known is my age.