Mersenne Numbers in Nature and Elsewhere
In computer science, unsigned p-bit integers can be used to express numbers up to Mp. Signed p+1-bit integers can express values between -Mp and Mp.
In the mathematical problem Tower of Hanoi, solving a puzzle with a p-disc tower requires Mp steps, assuming no mistakes are made.
The asteroid with minor planet number 8191 is named 8191 Mersenne after Marin Mersenne, because 8191 is a Mersenne prime (3 Juno, 7 Iris, 31 Euphrosyne and 127 Johanna having been discovered and named during the nineteenth century).
Read more about this topic: Mersenne Prime
Famous quotes containing the words numbers and/or nature:
“Out of the darkness where Philomela sat,
Her fairy numbers issued. What then ailed me?
My ears are called capacious but they failed me,
Her classics registered a little flat!
I rose, and venomously spat.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“As yesterday and the historical ages are past, as the work of today is present, so some flitting perspectives and demi-experiences of the life that is in nature are in time veritably future, or rather outside of time, perennial, young, divine, in the wind and rain which never die.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)