The main purpose of this post is to roll over the discussion from the previous Polymath8 thread, which has become rather full with comments.    As with the previous thread, the main focus on the comments to this thread are concerned with writing up the results of the Polymath8 “bounded gaps between primes” project; the latest files on this writeup may be found at this directory, with the most recently compiled PDF file (clocking in at about 90 pages so far, with a few sections still to be written!) being found here.  There is also still some active discussion on improving the numerical results, with a particular focus on improving the sieving step that converts distribution estimates such as $MPZ^{(i)}[\varpi,\delta]$ into weak prime tuples results $DHL[k_0,2]$.  (For a discussion of the terminology, and for a general overview of the proof strategy, see this previous progress report on the Polymath8 project.)  This post can also contain any other discussion pertinent to any aspect of the polymath8 project, of course.

There are a few sections that still need to be written for the draft, mostly concerned with the Type I, Type II, and Type III estimates.  However, the proofs of these estimates exist already on this blog, so I hope to transcribe them to the paper fairly shortly (say by the end of this week).  Barring any unexpected surprises, or major reorganisation of the paper, it seems that the main remaining task in the writing process would be the proofreading and polishing, and turning from the technical mathematical details to expository issues.  As always, feedback from casual participants, as well as those who have been closely involved with the project, would be very valuable in this regard.  (One small comment, by the way, regarding corrections: as the draft keeps changing with time, referring to a specific line of the paper using page numbers and line numbers can become inaccurate, so if one could try to use section numbers, theorem numbers, or equation numbers as reference instead (e.g. “the third line after (5.35)” instead of “the twelfth line of page 54″) that would make it easier to track down specific portions of the paper.)

Also, we have set up a wiki page for listing the participants of the polymath8 project, their contact information, and grant information (if applicable).  We have two lists of participants; one for those who have been making significant contributions to the project (comparable to that of a co-author of a traditional mathematical research paper), and another list for those who have made auxiliary contributions (e.g. typos, stylistic suggestions, or supplying references) that would typically merit inclusion in the Acknowledgments section of a traditional paper.  It’s difficult to exactly draw the line between the two types of contributions, but we have relied in the past on self-reporting, which has worked pretty well so far.  (By the time this project concludes, I may go through the comments to previous posts and see if any further names should be added to these lists that have not already been self-reported.)