Definitions of Terms Used in Biographical Pages
- Proof-Codes
- Proof-codes are used by the system as a short way to give credit for each
submitted prime. These are short strings (never more than four letters &
digits) which are linked to the list of the persons, programs and projects which
worked together to prove that number prime. An individual may join different
project at different times, or may switch software... So each human prover has
one prover-account, but may own many proof-codes (BOINC users typically have just
one). Similarly each program/project has one prover-account, but may belong to
many proof-codes. These codes make prime submission easier and also serve as a
short way of giving credit on the text versions of the prime list.
- Wild Codes
- Wild codes are generalized regular expressions used when a program is a member
of many proof-codes. For example, Proth.exe has the wild code '^GF\d+' to show
that every proof-code which starts with a lower case 'g' followed by one or more
digits is a code that uses Proth.exe during the primality proof. Since there are
several hundred of these, we do not want to list them all on the Proth.exe
prover-account page.
- E-mail address
- The Prime Pages editors respect the privacy of all of its submitters. To
submit primes, they must provide an e-mail address so we can ask questions or verify
submitted data. We will not share this information with third parties and will
not post this e-mail address unless they request it using the 'edit biography'
page. If you allow the system to print your address, we suggest you have it
munged (an option when you edit your account) otherwise you are very likely to get
spammed. See our privacy
statement.
- Name
- The full name of the human prover or a short descriptive name of the program or
project. We prefer that the names are listed personal name first then the
family name: "John W. Smith". Please do not use all capitals. Save your creativity
for the username. Finding a record prime is a good reason to use your
real name.
- Last name
- The last name is used for sorting and to indicate an individual person, program
or project on the prime list. It must be short, contain no white spaces, and
unique. It is used in many lists to identify the prover and is used to sort
the prover index.
Though it is sometimes possible to link to these pages using the last name, you should not--use the prover's id instead. The id will not change, but the username might. (Editors may change them to improve readability, to take them out of all upper-case form, to shorten them...)
- Prover id
- A unique positive integer specifying the prover-account. Use this as the
primary means to link to a biography page (e.g.
https://t5k.org/bios/page.php?id=9). Prover id's should never change.
- Number of Primes
- The 'current list' contains the list of the 5,000 largest proven primes plus
select smaller primes. However, the database stores the list of all of the
primes that have every made this list. So there are two numbers indicated here:
the number of primes on the current list (which may change hourly) and the total
number that ever made any of the lists. These numbers do not include primes
awaiting verification. (Note that at first the database does
contain some primes that never made any list--these will be purged when I get a
chance, so this total number may drop once for some folks.)
The total shown for persons or projects (not programs) is adjusted by dividing by the number of other humans (or projects) in each relevant code.
For example, suppose the persons 'Carmody' and 'Caldwell' worked together and used the program 'PRP' to test candidates selected by the 'GFN 2^13 Sieving project', then completed their proofs using 'Proth.exe'. Then the persons 'Carmody' and 'Caldwell' would get 1/2 credit for each prime found; but the project 'GFN 2^13 Sieving project' and the programs 'PRP' and 'Proth.exe' would each get full credit.
- Production Score
- The production score is an attempt to rate the amount of effort used to find
primes. See the bottom of the Top Twenty
Prover pages for an explanation.
- Autobiographical data
- The autobiographical data is information provided by the person, programmer or
project coordinator. It may be edited if necessary to remove any inappropriate
text or code. The Prime Pages are not responsible for what individual write
themselves.
Young provers should always leave this section blank or make very sure that the do not include any identifying information.