[math-fun] biggest flop of all time

passed along from the Mersenne Prime mailing list ... Rich ---------------------- List-Post: <mailto:prime@hogranch.com> Did anyone notice we are coming up on a new prefix? GIMPS has performed over 800 quintillion floating point operations in the seven years of its existence, 800 exaflop. I calculate that in about four months, we will have collectively performed a sextillion floating point operations, allowing me to legitimately use a prefix I have never actually seen in use, even to describe the absurdly large quantities often associated with computing. GIMPS will soon complete the first zettaflop. spike