Wieferich@Home
Encyclopedia
Wieferich@Home is a distributed computing
(DC) project searching for Wieferich prime
s. It is the first Czech
distributed computing project. The only known Wieferich primes are 1093 and 3511, found in 1913 and 1922, respectively. It is not known if there exist infinitely or finitely many Wieferich primes, or if only the two known primes exist. The project is included in number of lists of distributed computing projects. All users can participate in this problem by running a free application on their own computer; the solution can be important in number theory
and possibly cryptography
.
Distributed computing
Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems. A distributed system consists of multiple autonomous computers that communicate through a computer network. The computers interact with each other in order to achieve a common goal...
(DC) project searching for Wieferich prime
Wieferich prime
In number theory, a Wieferich prime is a prime number p such that p2 divides 2p − 1 − 1, therefore connecting these primes with Fermat's little theorem, which states that every odd prime p divides 2p − 1 − 1...
s. It is the first Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
distributed computing project. The only known Wieferich primes are 1093 and 3511, found in 1913 and 1922, respectively. It is not known if there exist infinitely or finitely many Wieferich primes, or if only the two known primes exist. The project is included in number of lists of distributed computing projects. All users can participate in this problem by running a free application on their own computer; the solution can be important in number theory
Number theory
Number theory is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers. Number theorists study prime numbers as well...
and possibly cryptography
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
.
Further reading
- New @Home project, this time Czech and mathematical – ScienceWorld article (in Czech)
- The continuing search for Wieferich primes - paper about the recent search (Joshua Knauer and Jörg Richstein)
External links
- Wieferich@Home - the web page of the project
- Sequence in the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer SequencesOn-Line Encyclopedia of Integer SequencesThe On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences , also cited simply as Sloane's, is an online database of integer sequences, created and maintained by N. J. A. Sloane, a researcher at AT&T Labs...
- OEIS reference to the project - Free DC - Distributed Computing Stats System
- Distributed Computing - active DC projects (mathematics)