The Mersenne Newsletter, issue #10		March 11, 1997


New email address
-----------------

Due to sluggish performance on Compuserve, I've decided to make
woltman@magicnet.net my only email account.  Many of you are already
using this address.  Please update your records accordingly.  I hope
to close the Compuserve account by the end of this year.


Program News
------------

Version 14 was released on March 3rd.  This program can test larger
exponents and has improved error checking.  Factoring on Pentium computers
is slightly faster.  This version is backward compatible with the previous
version.

If you've ever had a FATAL ERROR, I strongly recommend downloading the
new version.  I recommend everyone else upgrade to the new version if
it is easy to do so.


New Ranges!
-----------

The exponents from 2,655,000 to 5,260,000 are now available for testing!

You could become the first person to discover a million digit prime number!
Chris Caldwell, http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/notes/by_year.html,
projects that one won't be found until 2007.  Care to beat that projection
by ten years?  Just find a Mersenne prime with an exponent above 3,321,927.

Lennart Grebelius' web page, http://www2.tripnet.se/~nlg/mersenne/benchmk.htm,
will give you an idea how long these exponents take to test.


The Small Ranges are Gone!
--------------------------

All ranges below 2,655,000 are now checked out!  If you have checked
out much more than a three month supply of exponents, please email me
so we can trim your range down and let others test the remainder.


Status
------

Since mid-January, we've proved 10,204 Mersenne numbers composite.
There are 21,723 exponents remaining below 2,655,000.  The Pentium-90
CPU years estimate dropped to 460 from 624.

In the new range from 2,655,000 to 5,260,000, there are 82,033 exponents
to test.  It will take an estimated 6,841 P-90 CPU years to complete.



Best wishes to all,
George Woltman
woltman@magicnet.net