Distributed Computing and Prime Numbers

By Miguel Diaz 17 Dec 2003

So, last month a Michigan State grad student participating in the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search found the 40th Mersenne Prime number. Now, I’m sure this has some major mathematical significance to someone on the order of Andrew Wiles, but I’m not him so let’s talk about the distributed computing aspect of it all.

<p>Now, I&#8217;ve been interested in distributed computing for quite a while and have lent a few cycles to <a href="http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/">some</a> <a href="http://www.distributed.net/">intriguing</a> <a href="http://www.mersenne.org/">projects</a>.  Around <a href="http://www.ibm.com">here</a> the <a href="http://www-1.ibm.com/grid/">concept</a> (or a derivitive/evolution anyway) is getting to be rather large.  What I find to be kind of a let down though is that using over 200,000 machines* the <span class="caps">GIMPS</span> network (w/ 9 Teraflops) wouldn&#8217;t break into the <a href="http://www.top500.org/dlist/2003/11/">top 10</a> in supercomputers.  I would think that the software and/or methodology could be improved in order to acheive that.</p>

<p>I think this is significant because projects like these are an ideal place for ideas to blossom into de facto standards before corporate giants catch hold of them and turn them into proprietary abominations.  Once the technology is assimilated by corporate America, there is much less we can do (from the outside anyway) to influence its evolution.</p>

<p>All that being said, obviously this voluntary-distributed computing idea does make for a wonderfully cost-effective method of getting supercomputer-caliber calculation power without begging Dad for a raise in your allowance.</p>

<p>*I realize that the computers aren&#8217;t dedicated solely to running the distributed client (in many cases running at rather low priority), and the 200,000 probably represents a large number of zombie users (like myself), but without accurate numbers I think the point is still valid.</p> 

Tags: distributed computing grid computing mersenne prime supercomputing