Seventeen or bust

"Seventeen or Bust" is a distributed computing project, to solve the Sierpinski problem.

The goal of the project is to find prime numbers in seventeen specific sequences. If the goal is reached, the conjecture of the Sierpinski problem will be proven true. So far prime numbers have been found in five of the sequences, leaving twelve back for testing.

There is also the possibility that some of the remaining sequences contain no prime numbers; if that possibility weren't present, the problem would not be interesting. If there is such a sequence, the project would go on for eternity, searching for prime numbers where none can be found. However, since no mathematician trying to prove the remaining sequences contain only composite numbers, has ever been successful, the conjecture is generally believed to be true.

The prime numbers found by the project are:

44131*2⁹⁹⁵⁹⁷² + 1; 299823 digits - discovered 6 December 2002

46157*2⁶⁹⁸²⁰⁷ + 1; 210186 digits - discovered 27 November 2002

54767*2^1337287 + 1; 402569 digits - discovered 22 December 2002

65567*2^1013803 + 1; 305190 digits - discovered 3 December 2002

69109*2^1157446 + 1; 348431 digits - discovered 7 December 2002

Note that each of these numbers has enough digits to fill up a middle-sized novel.

The project is presently dividing numbers among its active users, in hope of finding a prime number in the following sequences:

4847*2ⁿ +1

5359*2ⁿ +1

10223*2ⁿ +1

19249*2ⁿ +1

21181*2ⁿ +1

22699*2ⁿ +1

24737*2ⁿ +1

27653*2ⁿ +1

28433*2ⁿ +1

33661*2ⁿ +1

55459*2ⁿ +1

67607*2ⁿ +1

External links

• Homepage (http://www.seventeenorbust.com)