Firstly, I admit that I am posting this for totally selfish reasons. I have a favorite project, the Odd Perfect Number Search, and it has almost no users. I possess a Linux box that is at least 2 years old, and it's doing AT LEAST 20% of the work in that project. With BOINC, you could come up with just about anything and you could get a good amount of crunching power attached to it, even if you're a total ass, like the administrator of a project that I'm not going to mention.(key word,"censorship")

What is the Odd Perfect Number Search? Well, a perfect number is a number where, if you add up all the factors of the number, you get the number itself. The first two are 6(1+2+3=6) and 28(1+2+4+7+14=28). In the case of even perfect numbers, there is a formula, and each even perfect number is directly related to a Mersenne prime. If 2^n-1 is prime, than 2^n-1 for that n is a Mersenne Prime. Once you find a Mersenne Prime(only 44 are known) you simply calculate (2^n-1)(2^(n-1)-1)) and you have an EVEN perfect number.

The problem comes when you want to find an odd perfect number. None are known, but it has been calculated that an OPN would have more than 473 digits. There is an ongoing search going on at oddperfect.org , which basically involves applying mathematical logic and using computers to factor certain numbers. Considering the amount of power given to most projects, there is almost no work being done on this. But if this were made into a BOINC project, usage would probably sky-rocket.

The best thing about it is that you don't even have to understand a lot of the math behind the programs. You just need to be able to dynamically set a few parameters to keep the processes from hogging the computer. It is preferable that the factoring program be compiled for each cpu and OS, but if you don't do it for every single choice, it just degrades efficiency, so really no big deal.

If you are interested or curious about this, the oddperfect.org site gives a lot of good info. I'm not sure how wblipp(the owner of the site) will respond to finding out I've made this post, but I would hope he'd welcome the interest.

I know this post is probably a waste of time, but I just thought I'd make an attempt.

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Hi Jasong

A Google search for OddPerfect.org produces lots of results, including references to it on Wiki pages, but the website doesn't open up, at least for me.

http://www.oddperfect.org/

As it isn't on the current front-page list of projects on the boinc website, we need to get the web address right.

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Hi Jasong

A Google search for OddPerfect.org produces lots of results, including references to it on Wiki pages, but the website doesn't open up, at least for me.

http://www.oddperfect.org/

As it isn't on the current front-page list of projects on the boinc website, we need to get the web address right.

Sorry for the super-late response. :(

Try http://oddperfect.org

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Darn, I should have read things before I made that post.

wblipp can be contacted on Mersenne Forum. http://www.mersenneforum.org

For questions involving compiling or how the factoring works(not just for the Odd Perfect Search, but for any number), you should go to the factoring forum.

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