Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

42nd Mersenne Prime Confirmed

Posted by Zonk on from the wooo-party dept.

Jazzer_Techie writes "The possible Mersenne Prime discovered last week has now been confirmed. This prime has 7,816,230 digits, which makes it not only the largest Mersenne Prime, but also the largest prime of any kind ever discovered. For those who don't want to take time to read the article, the prime is 2^25,964,951 - 1."

2 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by Ensign+Regis · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not trying to be a troll here, but of what possible value is a really big prime number? Is there any practical value to it, or is it just an interesting bit of trivia?

  2. Mersenne GIMPS FAQ by bigtallmofo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The FAQ for this endeavor can be seen here.

    One glaring ommission from the FAQ is "Why participate in this?" I guess if you have to ask why, there's no point in asking.

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.