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17 million digits: Largest prime number identified
It is the third Mersenne prime discovered by the university, and the 48th ever discovered.
Mersenne primes are named after their discoverer, 17th century French mathematician Marin Mersenne.
They are expressed as 2P-1, or two to the power of “P” minus one. P itself is a prime number. For the new prime, P is 57,885,161.
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I counted that high once.
NeoKong on February 7, 2013 at 6:02 PM
Oh this is groundbreaking./s
SC.Charlie on February 7, 2013 at 6:04 PM
Sounds like a good budget goal for the dog eating tyrant.
tom daschle concerned on February 7, 2013 at 6:04 PM
WOW! This changes EVERYTHING! (right?)
Pork-Chop on February 7, 2013 at 6:07 PM
That’s nice. Apply the Sieve of Eratosthenes and start looking for the next one, chaps.
KingGold on February 7, 2013 at 6:15 PM
Chuck Norris is not impressed.
BobMbx on February 7, 2013 at 6:22 PM
The answer is still 42.
OldEnglish on February 7, 2013 at 6:33 PM
So far….
ProfShadow on February 7, 2013 at 6:34 PM
This is the kind of important, practical science we should be spending our time and money on…
Shump on February 7, 2013 at 6:35 PM
America has mathemeticians who can find the highest prime number and a President who caters to voters of the lowest common denominator.
radjah shelduck on February 7, 2013 at 6:44 PM
… but then the guy I was playing forgot to say “bizz” on the next number so we had to start over.
malclave on February 7, 2013 at 6:48 PM
Oh crap I finally got it. Obama sees this as a goal.
CW on February 7, 2013 at 6:52 PM
Ah! Conservatives and hatred of science. They don’t get it, it’s not in bible, so it’s evil!!
Ever purchase things online? Do you do online banking? Do you like those operations to remain secure? That brings us to RSA and other encryption techniques that depend on large prime numbers.
lester on February 7, 2013 at 6:59 PM
What are you gibbering about now?
Besides, it’s liberals, not conservatives, who think math is evil. Their “budget” proves that beyond any doubt.
malclave on February 7, 2013 at 7:08 PM
Meh. That’s my old Pac Man score.
mimi1220 on February 7, 2013 at 7:11 PM
Great comeback.
Mirimichi on February 7, 2013 at 7:12 PM
That is a very odd number.
growl on February 7, 2013 at 7:13 PM
Wow you’re son insane with your hate ….what a reach.
Running out of material I guess. One day you’ll actually post something, anything with some depth.
CW on February 7, 2013 at 7:18 PM
Yeah, it’s liberals commenting how this is useless. Pretty much every time there’s a scientific discovery posted on Hotair you can find the generic “It’s useless” and “I hope it’s not my taxes!” comments.
The comments are right there. Learn to read.
lester on February 7, 2013 at 7:29 PM
Since I am a very conservative, libertarian college professor, lester, your claim is disproved by counter-example.
And btw, the number of prime numbers is infinite. They generally just get spaced a bit further apart
As for their use, well, encryption and information storage and transmission are two areas that primes and other “special kinds of numbers” are used.
ProfShadow on February 7, 2013 at 7:58 PM
Yeh, you got nothin.
CW on February 7, 2013 at 7:58 PM
Meh.
Personally, I think it’s interesting, but I’m not sure how useful it is. But that’s not really the point, is it?
You specifically claimed that conservatives “don’t get it” (science and math) and think it’s “evil”.
You have anything to back that up, or are you just another liberal engaging in hate speech?
No need to answer that last question, really… it’s rhetorical.
malclave on February 7, 2013 at 8:03 PM
At some point, you’ve
made enough moneydiscovered as many prime numbers as you need. It’s more fair to spread the effort around to other mathematical areas so that prime numbers don’t get all themoneyattention.ExpressoBold on February 7, 2013 at 8:04 PM
Does Sheldon know?
GruntDoc on February 7, 2013 at 8:38 PM
The final prime. Now we can factor anything.
unclesmrgol on February 7, 2013 at 8:57 PM
RSA’s been cracked.
unclesmrgol on February 7, 2013 at 8:58 PM