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Related: About this forumKnock, knock. Who's there? A new Mersenne Prime!
ORLANDO, Florida -- On January 25th at 23:30:26 UTC, the largest known prime number, 257,885,161-1, was discovered on Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) volunteer Curtis Cooper's computer. The new prime number, 2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times, less one, has 17,425,170 digits. With 360,000 CPUs peaking at 150 trillion calculations per second, 17th-year GIMPS is the longest continuously-running global "grassroots supercomputing"[1] project in Internet history.
Dr. Cooper is a professor at the University of Central Missouri. This is the third record prime for Dr. Cooper and his University. Their first record prime was discovered in 2005, eclipsed by their second record in 2006. Computers at UCLA broke that record in 2008 with a 12,978,189 digit prime number. UCLA held the record until University of Central Missouri reclaimed the world record with this discovery. The new primality proof took 39 days of non-stop computing on one of the university's PCs. Dr. Cooper and the University of Central Missouri are the largest individual contributors to the project. The discovery is eligible for a $3,000 GIMPS research discovery award.
The new prime number is a member of a special class of extremely rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes. It is only the 48th known Mersenne prime ever discovered, each increasingly difficult to find. Mersenne primes were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. GIMPS, founded in 1996, has discovered all 14 of the largest known Mersenne primes. Volunteers download a free program to search for these primes with a cash award offered to anyone lucky enough to compute a new prime. Chris Caldwell maintains an authoritative web site on the largest known primes as well as the history of Mersenne primes.
http://www.mersenne.org/various/57885161.htm
Dr. Cooper is a professor at the University of Central Missouri. This is the third record prime for Dr. Cooper and his University. Their first record prime was discovered in 2005, eclipsed by their second record in 2006. Computers at UCLA broke that record in 2008 with a 12,978,189 digit prime number. UCLA held the record until University of Central Missouri reclaimed the world record with this discovery. The new primality proof took 39 days of non-stop computing on one of the university's PCs. Dr. Cooper and the University of Central Missouri are the largest individual contributors to the project. The discovery is eligible for a $3,000 GIMPS research discovery award.
The new prime number is a member of a special class of extremely rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes. It is only the 48th known Mersenne prime ever discovered, each increasingly difficult to find. Mersenne primes were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. GIMPS, founded in 1996, has discovered all 14 of the largest known Mersenne primes. Volunteers download a free program to search for these primes with a cash award offered to anyone lucky enough to compute a new prime. Chris Caldwell maintains an authoritative web site on the largest known primes as well as the history of Mersenne primes.
http://www.mersenne.org/various/57885161.htm
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Knock, knock. Who's there? A new Mersenne Prime! (Original Post)
Dr. Strange
Feb 2013
OP
longship
(40,416 posts)1. Love number theory stories!
WCGreen
(45,558 posts)2. My life is complete
tama
(9,137 posts)3. Welcome, 48th! nt
Jim__
(14,077 posts)4. The text dropped the exponentiation when you copied it.
It confused me at first:
ORLANDO, Florida -- On January 25th at 23:30:26 UTC, the largest known prime number, 257,885,161-1, was discovered on Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) volunteer Curtis Cooper's computer. ...
It may be clear to everyone else, but, FWIW:
ORLANDO, Florida -- On January 25th at 23:30:26 UTC, the largest known prime number, 257,885,161-1, was discovered on Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) volunteer Curtis Cooper's computer. ...
Dr. Strange
(25,921 posts)5. Are you sure?
Because 257,885,161-1 equals 257,885,160, and that looks pretty prime.
lastlib
(23,248 posts)6. divisible by 10, obviously......
so it can't be prime.......
Wounded Bear
(58,670 posts)8. ....and 2
There are no even primes higher than two.
lastlib
(23,248 posts)9. ...or ending in zero or 5 or any even number
GeorgeGist
(25,321 posts)7. Math isn't your strong suit ...
Last edited Tue Feb 5, 2013, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)
Or reading skills.
Geesh.
eppur_se_muova
(36,269 posts)10. Yes, it should be 2[sup]57,885,161[/sup]-1
257,885,161-1
All Mersenne primes are of the form 2p-1
(Yes, I see the duncecap.)
Response to eppur_se_muova (Reply #10)
eppur_se_muova This message was self-deleted by its author.
eppur_se_muova
(36,269 posts)12. http://www.mersenne.org/ for more info, or to join. nt