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40th Mersenne Prime Found

Posted by michael on from the primal-urges dept.

FenwayFrank writes "A release from New Scientist announces that the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search found another one: 2^20996011 - 1 is prime. Weighing in at 6,320,430 digits (6 megabytes of prime number...), it becomes the world's largest. Slashdot readers may remember then announcement of the 39th Mersenne Prime, a mere 3.5 million digits."

1 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. 6 Megabytes?????? by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 0, Troll

    Since when does it take a byte to represent a base 10 digit?

    This number takes more like 21 KB to represent.