Student Finds Largest Known Prime Number

CNN ^ | 12/11/03

[marshmallow]

DETROIT, Michigan (AP) -- More than 200,000 computers spent years looking for the largest known prime number. It turned up on Michigan State University graduate student Michael Shafer's off-the-shelf PC.

"It was just a matter of time," Shafer said.

The number is 6,320,430 digits long and would need 1,400 to 1,500 pages to write out. It is more than 2 million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number.

[Poohbah]

That said, what is the practical significance of Shafer's number?

Making a misbehaving kid write out a six-mega-digit prime number might be a good deterrent (c8

[Frank_Discussion]

And again, very regrettably, one is the loneliest known number...

[Frohickey]

this is news???

give it enough time, and the next larger one will be calculated...<p. must be a slow news day over at CNN

[xJones]

Well, thank heaven that was found. I can sleep better at night now.:)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

A good project, while Freeping.

[Mad Dawgg]

"one is the loneliest known number..."

Yeah...

But two, can be as sad as one...

[Servant of the 9]

A prime number is a positive number divisible only by itself and one: 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on.

CNN Idiots

A prime number is one divisable only by itself and 1.

So9

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: The number is 6,320,430 digits long and would need 1,400 to 1,500 pages to write out. It is more than 2 million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number.

Gad, and I though it was 11...

[bwteim]

Mersenne primes are important for the theory of numbers and they may help in developing unbreakable codes and message encryptions.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1693364.stm

[petercooper]

sounds like fun

[ChefKeith]

Whew! now I can sleep tonight. I was worried that we might never figure this out.

My day is now complete...

[Double Tap]

Student Finds Largest Known Prime Number

That and 50 cents will get you a can of Dr. Pepper.

[RightWhale]

Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.

Frere Mersenne is known for several things in physics and math, but his office as philosophical diplomat between various national physics factions, between England, France, and Italy [even recalcitrant Galileo] did much to further the Renaissence.

[My2Cents]

I did you one better...I thought it was 13.

[tracer]

This may have something to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but I'm not quite sure.

BTW, does anyone have Avogadro's number? The FBI is looking into the possibility that he's an element in a mole operation....

[My2Cents]

Coincidentally, that newly found prime number is also the size of the national debt.

[Izzy Dunne]

spent years looking for the largest known prime number.

What an asinine statement.
If it was the largest known prime number, they wouldn't have to spend years looking for it!

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: I did you one better...I thought it was 13.

Gad, don't we both feel stupid now?

Oh, the shame... The shame!

[Madame Dufarge]

I found my car keys this morning, but nobody's writing articles about that.

Life isn't fair.