Central Missouri State University Researchers Find Largest Prime Number

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Central Missouri State University Researchers Find Largest Prime Number

Posted: 1/4/2006 11:51:15 AM EDT

Thats one large number, but what exactly does this discovery mean ? What does one do with such a large number after it is found ? Can some of the mathematicians here tell me what the significance of this is ? Kinda neat that it took 700 computers years to find it.

Mo. Researchers Find Largest Prime Number
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Researchers at a Missouri university have identified the largest known prime number, officials said Tuesday.

The team at Central Missouri State University, led by associate dean Steven Boone and mathematics professor Curtis Cooper, found it in mid-December after programming 700 computers years ago.

A prime number is a positive number divisible by only itself and 1 — 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on.

The number that the team found is 9.1 million digits long. It is a Mersenne prime known as M30402457 — that's 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1.

Mersenne primes are a special category expressed as 2 to the "p" power minus 1, in which "p" also is a prime number.

"We're super excited," said Boone, a chemistry professor. "We've been looking for such a number for a long time."

The discovery is affiliated with the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a global contest using volunteers who run software that searches for the largest Mersenne prime.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060104/ap_on_sc/largest_prime_number

Posted: 1/4/2006 11:53:09 AM EDT

[#1]

There is no largest prime.

It's the largest KNOWN prime. There are many more, we just don't know what they are.

Posted: 1/4/2006 11:53:15 AM EDT

[#2]

Wow.

And I thought I was a nerd.

Posted: 1/4/2006 11:53:53 AM EDT

[#3]

DUPE

ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=424336

Posted: 1/4/2006 11:54:46 AM EDT

[#4]

Must be a slow day/month/year/decade/century in Missouri...

Posted: 1/4/2006 11:56:52 AM EDT

[#5]

how, exactly, does this discovery help us?

Posted: 1/4/2006 11:57:11 AM EDT

[#6]

I would think that there are an infinite number of Mersenne primes.

Posted: 1/4/2006 11:59:05 AM EDT

[#7]

Think of all the great engineering spinoffs from this research.

Posted: 1/4/2006 12:00:04 PM EDT

[#8]

Quoted:
DUPE

ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=424336

Excuse me, with the title on that thread no wonder it didn't show up when I searched

Posted: 1/4/2006 12:10:28 PM EDT

[#9]

prime numbers are used in encryption decryption algorithims as well as several other things that make computers work and cell phones and so on. They are a funamental characteristic of numbers that make possible high technology.

It has been proposed that the more prime numbers a intelegent race is aware of. The more Technologicaly advanced it is. Asuming there are other races.

Posted: 1/4/2006 12:11:06 PM EDT

[#10]

Quoted:
Quoted:
DUPE

ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=424336

Excuse me, with the title on that thread no wonder it didn't show up when I searched

Your Excused!

Posted: 1/4/2006 1:45:17 PM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:
I would think that there are an infinite number of Mersenne primes.

You'd think so, but is there a proof?

Posted: 1/4/2006 1:55:24 PM EDT

[#12]

Never underestimate the power of dorks in small groups

Posted: 1/4/2006 2:07:27 PM EDT

[#13]

http://ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=424336

Posted: 1/4/2006 2:24:38 PM EDT

[#14]

http://ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=424336

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Central Missouri State University Researchers Find Largest Prime Number

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