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45th and 46th Mersenne Primes Confirmed
kahunak writes to alert us that GIMPS has announced that the 45th and 46th Mersenne primes have been confirmed. The EFF's $100,000 award, for the first prime over 10 million digits in length, will probably be claimed. (We discussed no. 45 when it was announced.)
The $100k award is not enough to cover the cost of sending the number through sms...
You do realize that sending this prime number via SMS would require 62501 sms messages, using the standard US sms character limit of 160. Let's see... at the standard rate for SMS in the US of $.20, ( http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/26695/congress-to-cell-carriers-why-have-sms-rates-doubled/ ) that comes out to, $12,500.20.
Now, assuming you can SMS at lightning speed and input 3 characters per second on a non qwerty keyboard (which is pretty dang fast if this story is to be believed http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/17/new-world-record-for-fastest-text-messaging/ ) typing that out will take roughly 926 hours or 38.5 days.
Now I'm not a doctor, but you'd also have to factor in the chance for physical, and mental harm from this extended bout of texting. No sleep, no food or water, and definitly no slashdot for 38.5 days, not to mention the incedible amount of stress placed upon the joints, tendons, and muscles of your thumbs and arms.
I say no thank you sir, no thank you indeed. Good luck in your epic endeavor!