UCLA's 13 million-digit prime number could win $100,000

[Prrkitty]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/09/27/prime.number.ap/index.html

I thought this was very interesting. Just passing along for those that might be interested in it. :)

[Icey]

Yeah, I saw. We have a pretty good math department here, actually (although some undergrads might disagree because they often get stuck with awful visiting profs... I've been lucky so far though). At least in terms of research, our department is awesome. Between the world famous mathematician Terry Tao and the number theory research UCLA puts out, the math department does pretty well.

[BlissUnknown]

UCLA is awesome. :)

And aside from this, UCLA also just recently developed the fastest bar code reader in the world: 1000x faster than what we have today. Ahhh! :tongue:

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-researchers-develop-the-world-64157.aspx

[aces2022]

I wish I had that much time to waste. Why does it matter how fast a bar code can be read?

[BlissUnknown]

It would be a lot more efficient for plenty of things (given that there is a cost effective way to make these scanners): blood banks, retail.

If you read the article, you might learn a little bit more about the potential for fast scanners. :)

[Pryme8]

I used to work at a blood bank, and our scanners were just fine... I don't see how making them any faster (they already work faster then a person can) will make the workload any different...

[AtmaWeapon]

I used to work at a blood bank, and our scanners were just fine... I don't see how making them any faster (they already work faster then a person can) will make the workload any different...Because you are still thinking about the process from a primitive "HUMAN SCAN BARCODE. HUMAN WAIT FOR DING NOISE. HUMAN PUT BAG IN BOX." point of view. You're probably thinking "Huh, from the time it dings to the time the computer has it is pretty fast" but ignoring the time between when you ask the scanner to scan and when it finally recognizes the barcode.

I worked in a manufacturing plant for the company that invented one of the popular barcode formats. Even with the whiz-bang top-of-the-line scanners, it would take between 2 and 8 seconds for you to align the barcode and get the scanner at the right distance and angle. Success was determined by the type of paper, resolution of the image, and lighting conditions at the time. Even the machines that did scanning as part of the process had to stop for 2-3 seconds to scan the barcodes. Every day, millions of these barcodes are scanned on the factory floor. Speeding this up by a factor of 1,000 means that instead of 2-3 seconds per unit, you spend 2-3 milliseconds per unit. Theoretically, that's 1,000 times more merchandise you can process (in practice, the barcodes were rarely a bottleneck; however, it is impossible for me to know if this is because these portions of the process were designed around a 2-3 second delay.)

Have you ever noticed the barcodes on some of the mail you get? What if the postal service could process 1,000 times more mail per day?

So yeah, this probably won't do much to improve your experience at the supermarket or blood bank, but the implications for several industries that rely heavily on barcodes are great.

[Modus Ponens]

I don't mean to be Captain Obvious, but... it's mostly machine-scanned stuff, then, right? I mean, let's say you can scan one product in five seconds right now-- I can't imagine a human could come anywhere near scanning one thousand products in five seconds.

[BlissUnknown]

http://dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2008/oct/06/ucla-develops-fastest-barcode-reader/

Here's an article that's not too complicated to understand, and it explains a little bit about why the scanner may be useful in blood banks.

[Icey]

To be honest: I could care less about the bar code scanner. Also, the daily bruin is a horrible paper and the writers are not the brightest bunch. I dunno about that particular article, but I've read way too much over 3 years (ie everytime I ever take a glance I am disgusted) to want to.

The prime number is awesome, though. I enjoy number theory and cryptography, and both are fun and useful, so it is not a "waste of time"

[Beldaran]

Also, it bears noting that a lot of research that was considered a "waste of time" with "no feasible application" became the foundation of much of the technology we use today.

Pointless research simply for the joy of discovery usually ends up being an important part of some future field of engineering.

[BlissUnknown]

Breakthroughs, big or little, are what continue to contribute to the evolution of technology. I think that developing a fast scanner is an amazing feat. The article does provide direct quotations (from the developers themselves) that explain a little bit about the potential for the fast scanner, and in that aspect, it may be worth reading.

Regarding the Daily Bruin, keep in mind that it's a college newspaper. It's a source of information, but it's not the Times, and it's not horrible either. The writers may not be the brightest bunch, but neither are the undergrad students doing research, or the business students looking to be entrepreneurs, etc etc...

I suppose if you're disgusted, it's wise to just stop looking at it. However, I do think that the Daily Bruin deserves more credit. It's difficult to judge how awful the writers might be when we, ourselves, are probably worse. :)

[Beldaran]

If you think the Daily Bruin is bad, try reading the Baylor Lariat without your brain turning into snot and running out your nose.

[Icey]

Well, like Bliss said, it's just that I dislike college newspapers in general. The jab at the Bruin's writers may have been out of line, but I only really said that because I'm friends with some of them ;)