A
prime number is an integer (> 1) that is divisible by 1 and itself (for example, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, and so on). Mathematicians have tried in vain to find any order in the distribution of the prime numbers, and the prime sequence remains the most interesting sequence of numbers. Prime numbers can be computed easily (for example, by using the
Sieve of Eratosthenes). There are an infinite number of prime numbers, and it is always an interesting project to find the largest known prime. An interesting subset of the prime numbers is the set of the so-called
Mersenne Primes, named after the 17th century Frenchman,
Marin Mersenne.
Marin Mersenne (1588-1648)Mersenne primes are of the form M
p = 2
p-1, where
p is also prime. The first eight such primes are 3, 7, 31, 127, 8191, 131071, 524287, and 2147483647. Last month, using the
Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS),
Dr. Martin Nowak discovered the largest known prime, which is also a Mersenne prime. The prime number is 2
25,964,951-1, and has 7,816,230 digits (Click
here for the full number!). It took more than 50 days of calculations on Dr. Nowak's 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 computer. The discovery is the
eighth record prime for the GIMPS project.
As computing power increases, more and more such primes will be found :-).
