My grid computing system - Gridbach is a cloud-based distributed computing system accessible from any PC or smartphone. It requires no login or app installation. The high-performance WASM (WebAssembly) binary code is downloaded as browser content, enabling computation on the user’s browser.
[Website] https://gridbach.com/
[Medium] https://medium.com/@jay_gridbach/grid-computing-shatters-wor...
What Hiroaki wants here is "no one has proven it mathematically". Full stop.
Or "no one has proven it mathematically to this day", or "no one has proven it mathematically so far".
We only have a few of these in English, where one of the tenses of the verb changes depending on the subject matter, but they do exist. The only other one I can think of off the top of my head is hang: past and participle "hanged"/"have hanged" (to execute or be executed via hanging from the neck) versus "hung"/"have hung" (any other meaning).
Hope that helps!
Edit: fixed my example to better match the original text.
I'm not a mathematician though, so maybe this is a genuine semantic convention that neither I nor my dictionary are aware of. Maybe it's just that some mathematical style guides say to prefer "proved", for consistency, not that it really depends on the context?
Alternatively, "it has yet to be proved mathematically".
1. pedantry
To request a new batch:
POST https://jqarehgzwnyelidzmhrn.supabase.co/rest/v1/rpc/get_job
apikey: ...
authorization: Bearer ...
{"_client_hash":"..."}
{
"jobId": 755344,
"message": "get_job() succeeded, got jobId: 755344 as a new one"
}
Once done:
POST https://jqarehgzwnyelidzmhrn.supabase.co/rest/v1/rpc/put_job
apiKey: ...
authorization: Bearer ...
{"_client_hash": "...","_job_id": 755344,"_status": 1,"_elapsed_time": 19.54,"_p": 3463,"_q": "4000075534448687929"}
Therefore, all the info that can be used for verification on the server is a single pair of _p and _q adding up to one number in the entire range. That's the extent of the verification.
One can of course patch the code to check a single number before reporting that the entire range has been checked. Pretty sure it's impossible for the server to detect that.
Correct me if I made a mistake somewhere.
Edit: On second thought, maybe the specific number reported back is deterministically chosen in a way that relies on finishing all the checks in the range, and thus can be compared with other reported results for the same range?
Even in that case, the server can't verify the work without repeating it. mersenne.org hands out a double checking job about 8 years later presumably to thwart determined attackers.[1]
And this project has increased that number to 4,000,010,000,000,000,000.
Increasing the limit by 0.00025%
Not totally sure this is a good use of the compute/brainpower...
That's 4 quintillion.
"i aim to push this farther to 5 quadrillion."
Many natural questions would arise, starting with “Is this the only counterexample?”
(I got that from https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/514/conjectures-tha... which features some other false conjectures that may be of interest to you)
Time required to compute next range grows very slowly and this project has only computed the incremental part from 4*10^18 to 4*10^18+7*10^13 . It would have taken previous record holder extra 0.002% time get those additional 7*10^13.
A meaningful record needs to either reproduce old one or beat it by significant margin. Otherwise you get meaningless +1 like this.
By my estimates (~7s to compute 10^8 large chunk) new "record" represents ~60days worth of single core compute. Run it on multiple threads and you essentially get 3-4days worth compute on single modern computer.
And it does so at rate which is much worse than previous record using 2012/2013 hardware. Previous record software was able to do 10^12 window in 48minutes on single i3 core from 2013. That's roughly 24x faster using the old software on 10year old low end computer compared to the new software on new hardware. Previous record represents ~133000 days of single core compute, probably less since majority of it likely run on something better than i3.
Unless author gets it to maliciously run on a popular website with at least 10^5 users(concurrently every minute not 10^5 unique during day), 5*10^18 doesn't seem reachable this way. Getting a data center to donate computing hours would also work, but in that case you could use more efficient native software like the one from 2013 (which was order of magnitude faster even then) or rewrite of it optimized for modern hardware. The current webassembly one only makes sense if you can get random individual volunteers do donate compute.
That is not to say that this is not a cool project. The distributed nature and running so seamlessly directly in the browser is definitely cool and allows people to contribute compute easily.
It may be that grandiose claims of new records are needed to make people donate their computational resources but I am not a fan of deceptive claims like this.
Great intuitive metaphor, btw.
---
Burj Khalifa - 828m
US Penny - 1.52mm (0.00152m)
Adding a US penny to the Burj Khalifa would therefore make it 0.000183% taller.
--
Original work - 4,000,000,000,000,000,000
OP's work - 70,000,000,000
OP's work added 0.00000175% to the current record.
---
Conclusion: adding a penny to the Burj Khalifa is actually >100x more constructive than this effort.
So this tickles my nostalgia bone strongly. And maybe makes me feel a tiny bit jealous. But more excited than envious, really, to see people are still working on this problem.
Also likely that seti@home was killed due to bandwith cost making it uneconomical[1]. After all they were looking for aliens in the data.
This "gridbach" project is much closer to GIMPS.
[1]: even if seti@home got their server bandwidth for free, they also need to factor in the bandwidth cost of their "home" participants.
I tried running in on 4 tabs on Firefox, and it did slow down a bit (maybe 16 seconds). All 4 tabs reported the same count, and it seemed not to increment for all the tabs. Also the initializing step was very fast on the subsequent tabs, as if it was reusing some data. Each tab used 100% of CPU and was doing different calculations. Same for Chrome.
Maybe it is not designed to be run in parallel on the same browser? Now I just run it on two separate browsers, one tab each. I probably stop later today when I need the computer for something else.
(Edit: Got a bit over 100B in 3.5 hours, stopping now. Machine running a tad warm, 25% CPU use, feels normal to use, but I think the fans are working a bit harder than normal)
As highlighted by @tromp and @oefrha (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43734877) it is clear, clients can cheat. So we can't be 100% sure that none of the clients cheated. What if a counterexample to the conjecture exists, but a dishonest client simply failed to report it? Math results require rigor and without rigor no claim can be trusted. Without rigor, this bold assertion remains just that. A claim, not a fact.
OP! On top of that, you're being evasive in threads where you're being asked how your validation works and you went so far as to flag a pertinent thread. That definitely doesn't inspire confidence. Addressing the validation questions is absolutely 100% necessary if you want this to be seen as more than just a claim.
A. No validation is done on server side to confirm the workers are reporting correct results.
B. Increasing the limit by less than a thousandth of a percent does not make this a "world record"! If we go by that logic, I only have to validate one more example than you and claim a world record. And then you'd do the same. And then I'd do the same and we'll be playing "world record" ping pong all day!
But "B" isn't the big problem here because we have worse problems "A"! Nobody (not even the OP) can tell if the results are accurate!
No, I'm not simply dissing at a Show HN post. There are many comments here that explain these problems much better than I could.
This is egregrious clickbait!
Why doesn't it?
"If we go by that logic, I only have to validate one more example than you and claim a world record."
Yes. You can argue that it's not difficult enough or interesting enough, but you can't argue that N+1 result is not a world record.
Here's one:
4*10^18 + 7*10^13 + 1.
Boom! New world record. Now add 1 and you've got another. Try it. Keep going. World records like this will be surpassed by someone else in milliseconds.
Honestly, this is the first time I've heard "world record" used for NOT finding a counterexample. The whole thing feels absurd. You can keep checking numbers forever, calling each one a record? It's silly, to be honest. Never heard anyone calling these world records, before today.
OP has a nice project. But the wording is so deceptive and so silly that it harms the credibility of the project more than it helps.
The proper way to state OP's result would be:
"The conjecture has been shown to hold for all integers upto 4 × 10^18 + 7 × 10^13."
But I don't think the OP can claim to have done this either. As discussed in comments here, OP hasn't verified all those numbers to legitimately make this claim. So calling it a "world record" is misleading right from the start.
And the idea of a "world record" for NOT finding a counterexample is kind of absurd. I could check the next number and say, "Hey, no counterexample here either, new world record?" It quickly becomes meaningless.
I mean I really checked 4*10^18 + 7*10^13 + 1 and found that it also satisfies the conjecture. So this is another number that is NOT counterexample. Would that mean I've just broken the "world record"? If so, do I now hold the world record, just by posting this? And then if you check 4*10^18 + 7*10^13 + 2 and post, do you now hold the new world record?
Records like this make sense when something non-trivial is found, like discovering a new Mersenne prime. No one celebrates confirming that the next number is NOT a Mersenne prime, because it's trivial and fleeting.
Final Answer: 4.00007×10^18
:-D
At this point, I am not capable with addressing the thing you pointed out - the way to block fake results in open network. From the very beginning, I don't want to make the system closed-network nor login required as I want people to join the calculation instantly. Technically, I think it is impossible to prevent reporting fake result as long as it is open network system - which means my design doesn't fit to seeking rigor.
If someone starts another project that handles calculations in better way, I would like to learn from it.
There's no definitive proof that a world record has been set. Nor that every individual block has been processed and reported honestly. What is known is that the system provides a mechanism for volunteers to submit counterexamples if they choose to. That's something.
It's possible for clients to act dishonestly and withhold counterexamples. There's an incentive to claim independent credit. So the clients have incentive to lie.
So your project doesn't ensure that every block has been verified, it allows honest participants to report findings. That's the reality and you should frame it that way in the post and article.
laurent_du•9h ago
jay_gridbach•9h ago