Dave

I don't get why someone would pay $10k to find another Mersenne prime. Seems a bit of a waste of money to me.

I dread to think how long it took to confirm that number was prime. I don't really see the point in it anyway to be honest, there's a lot of prime numbers about It's like finding pi to x trillion digits, completely pointless.

I was under the impression that if you gave a microwave enough energy, then eventually it ceases to be a microwave and turns into an X-ray (E = hf), although I admit this is a bit extreme for a simple microwave oven

Also just note that I shifted all the Chaos Theory stuff over to Modern/Abstract Algebra, which is basically what fractals and things like that are anyway.

The energy of your average microwave perhaps, but there's always going to be the odd few that are given more energy than the rest.

Probably for pretty much the same reasons water does, and they're in the other thread.

Maybe if you sat on it for long enough.

I daresay people wouldn't miss the Geometry forum, or the Statistics forum.

I think he's more valuable alive. He probably has a lot of information in him about various stuff, so it's better to keep him alive. Plus as sayo says, it's a much better punishment. I think he should be forced to stop shaving for the rest of his life as well, it'd be quite comical.

Forum Rules Also please note that the posts from the old Fractal forum have now been moved to Modern/Abstract Algebra. [*]Please refrain from posting non-mathematical related information onto any mathematical forum. The General Discussions forum should be used for this purpose. [*]Specifically, this forum (i.e. General Mathematics) should only be used for threads which do not fit into any other category of mathematics forum. Any posts of this nature will be moved to the appropriate forum. [*]Where possible, please use correct mathematical notation, and, in particular, use of the correct tags for superscript and subscript as well as proper bracketing of formulae. For example, (a+b)/2 :neq: a+b/2 Consult the list of smilies for a full list of mathematical symbols and Greek letters. [*]Always remember that I'm on the lookout for new mathematical problems to put in my competition, so make sure that if you do have an interesting problem, e-mail it to me at dave@xyloid.org! [/list=1] Please note that any posts that existed in the Chaos Theory and Fractals forum are now located in the Modern Algebra forum.

I think that if they did it'd be a bit of a farce. Although knowing the Bush administration I really wouldn't be surprised

BBC News is starting to get on my nerves now.

Yeah, next weeks should be incredibly funny I think the argument's more over the title of the show and the way they take the 'biscuit' somewhat. I just ignore those bits.

That already exists in the form of the Competition forum. E-mail me any problems you have and I'll put them up there.

True, although sometimes it's more convenient to do a client-side check if it's only small and supported by most browsers. If you've got a big form for instance, then you don't want to have to re-insert all the information into your fields, and although this could be overcome with some more code on your server-side application, it's easier to write a couple lines of Javascript than 30 lines of php.

But they blew up a caravan, it's gotta be good

Just a simple one to check the string length. A simple piece of Javascript would do it.

aye, and it's still on BBC News 24, which is annoying.

That could be interesting. Or not.

Ah, that's the one I was thinking of

A challenger tank (preferably loaded) would really be a lot more fun. You'd also have to get a pilot's license to fly the helicopter. Actually, does anyone know if you need a license to drive a tank apart from a regular driving license?

Damn, it's like star wars all over again

All I can say is it's about bloody time

I was thinking something along the same lines might be a good idea. The Calculus forum seems to have little to do with calculus anymore, and I reckon we should scrap Chaos Theory/Fractals and have a general math forum in its place.

LCD screens have lots and lots of leds in them. That's about it really (if only it were that simple).