A team of scientists from the University of Missouri, USA, has utilized over 700 computers to discover the largest prime number to date, an enormous figure consisting of 9,152,052 digits.
This discovery was made on December 15 and was confirmed again on December 24, marking the second time this year that the project known as the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has found a largest prime number. However, similar to the discovery made in February, the newly found number still does not reach the required size of 10 million digits needed to claim the $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
 |
Friar Marin Mersenne |
The GIMPS project harnesses the power of over 200,000 voluntarily provided computers tasked with searching for all Mersenne prime numbers. A prime number is a number that can only be divided by 1 and itself, while a Mersenne prime is a special form represented by the formula 2^p – 1, where p is also a prime number. For instance, 7 is a Mersenne prime because it is a prime number and equals 2^3 – 1.
For several years now, the largest prime numbers discovered have all been Mersenne primes. They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French friar born in 1588 who discovered this form of numbers.
Mersenne primes have often been found by individuals, but this time the achievement belongs to a group of volunteers. This group has dedicated processing power equivalent to that of a Pentium 90MHz computer running continuously for 67,000 years. Professors Curtis Cooper and Steven Boone oversee this project.
The prime number discovered this time is the 43rd Mersenne prime found, expressed as 2^30,402,457 – 1. Those interested in viewing this actual number can download it here.
