Math is Hard

So remember that "Mersenne Prime Number Finder" that I talked about in my last post? Well as some of you have noticed it does not find Mersenne primes at all. It just finds regular old Mersenne numbers, which are of the form 2^n-1. Being a Mersenne number does not guarantee primality obviously, as the program returned results such as 15.

Thanks to the help of CRGreathouse, a moderator at Math Forum, I've realized these mistakes.
So, my goal is to find Mersenne Primes. I'm half-way there by finding regular Mrsn numbers... and luckily there is a thing known as the Lucas-Lehmer Primality Test, which applies only to Mrsn numbers. So now I have to find a way to implement this test into my program and I should be finding primes in no time!

CRGreathouse also introduced me to a programming language that is more suitable for numbers and mathematical operations than Java: Pari/GP. It is actually quite similar to Java in respect to syntax, but it handles numbers much more easily. Hopefully I'll be able to write my program soon! I have quite a bit to do today though and I'm working for most of the weekend, sadly.

Next week I'll have plenty of free time though, since I'm officially and finally done with summer classes. I'm not 100% sure that I passed Pre-calc... I did less than average on most of the quizzes and tests. I have no one to blame but myself, but this is just wrong. Here I am doing a math project in my spare time and yet I can't put forth the effort to pass a class? I don't lack the ability to understand the concepts, and I have an interest in math, but... I guess my fault lies in that I don't have an interest in doing homework. Oh well, as of now I'm still scheduled to take Calc I in fall semester, so hopefully that doesn't fall through even if I don't pass. I do NOT want to retake precalc and sit through 15 weeks of the same stuff I just learned.

Haha, well here's to slacking off and getting nowhere!
-Cheers!

1 comments:

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