Definitions of Terms Used in Biographical Pages

Proof-Codes
Proof-codes are used by the system as a short way to give credit for each submitted prime.  These are short strings (never more than four letters & digits) which are linked to the list of the persons, programs and projects which worked together to prove that number prime.  An individual may join different project at different times, or may switch software... So each human prover has one prover-account, but may own many proof-codes (BOINC users typically have just one).  Similarly each program/project has one prover-account, but may belong to many proof-codes.  These codes make prime submission easier and also serve as a short way of giving credit on the text versions of the prime list.

Wild Codes
Wild codes are generalized regular expressions used when a program is a member of many proof-codes.  For example, Proth.exe has the wild code '^GF\d+' to show that every proof-code which starts with a lower case 'g' followed by one or more digits is a code that uses Proth.exe during the primality proof.  Since there are several hundred of these, we do not want to list them all on the Proth.exe prover-account page.

E-mail address
The Prime Pages editors respect the privacy of all of its submitters.  To submit primes, they must provide an e-mail address so we can ask questions or verify submitted data.  We will not share this information with third parties and will not post this e-mail address unless they request it using the 'edit biography' page.  If you allow the system to print your address, we suggest you have it munged (an option when you edit your account) otherwise you are very likely to get spammed.  See our privacy statement.

Name
The full name of the human prover or a short descriptive name of the program or project.  We prefer that the names are listed personal name first then the family name: "John W. Smith". Please do not use all capitals. Save your creativity for the username.  Finding a record prime is a good reason to use your real name.

Last name
The last name is used for sorting and to indicate an individual person, program or project on the prime list.  It must be short, contain no white spaces, and unique.  It is used in many lists to identify the prover and is used to sort the prover index.

Though it is sometimes possible to link to these pages using the last name, you should not--use the prover's id instead.  The id will not change, but the username might.  (Editors may change them to improve readability, to take them out of all upper-case form, to shorten them...)

Prover id
A unique positive integer specifying the prover-account.  Use this as the primary means to link to a biography page (e.g. https://t5k.org/bios/page.php?id=9).  Prover id's should never change.

Number of Primes
The 'current list' contains the list of the 5,000 largest proven primes plus select smaller primes.  However, the database stores the list of all of the primes that have every made this list.  So there are two numbers indicated here: the number of primes on the current list (which may change hourly) and the total number that ever made any of the lists.  These numbers do not include primes awaiting verification.  (Note that at first the database does contain some primes that never made any list--these will be purged when I get a chance, so this total number may drop once for some folks.)

The total shown for persons or projects (not programs) is adjusted by dividing by the number of other humans (or projects) in each relevant code. 

For example, suppose the persons 'Carmody' and 'Caldwell' worked together and used the program 'PRP' to test candidates selected by the 'GFN 2^13 Sieving project', then completed their proofs using 'Proth.exe'.  Then the persons 'Carmody' and 'Caldwell' would get 1/2 credit for each prime found; but the project 'GFN 2^13 Sieving project' and the programs 'PRP' and 'Proth.exe' would each get full credit.

Production Score
The production score is an attempt to rate the amount of effort used to find primes.  See the bottom of the Top Twenty Prover pages for an explanation.

Autobiographical data
The autobiographical data is information provided by the person, programmer or project coordinator.  It may be edited if necessary to remove any inappropriate text or code.  The Prime Pages are not responsible for what individual write themselves. 

Young provers should always leave this section blank or make very sure that the do not include any identifying information.

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