45th Mersenne prime discovered (possibly) Move over
232,582,657-1. Your day has ended Distributed computing hasn't
folded us a cure for cancer yet, but these projects in which PC
users donate their spare processing power to solve scientific
problems have unquestionably made major strides in uncovering
ridiculously large prime numbers. Fans of bountiful digits may
soon be rocked by the potential discovery of the 45th known
Mersenne prime. Details are still pretty scarce, but on August
23, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) said a
computer participating in the project has reported to have found
the record-breaking number. Mersenne primes are named after the
17th century French monk, scholar, scientist, mathematician nerd
Marin Mersenne. A Mersenne number is a number that is one less
than a power of two, or Mn = 2n – 1. So, the first few are 1, 3,
7, 15, 31, 63, and so on. Mersenne primes are Mersenne numbers
that are also prime, meaning they are divisible only by 1 and
itself. You can see why find