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12M Digit Prime Number Sets Record, Nets $100,000
coondoggie writes "A 12-million-digit prime number, the largest such number ever discovered, has landed a voluntary math research group a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The number, known as a Mersenne prime, is the 45th known Mersenne prime, written shorthand as 2 to the power of 43,112,609, minus 1 . A Mersenne number is a positive integer that is one less than a power of two, the group stated. The computing project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) made the discovery on a computer at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Mathematics Department."
No, because not all Mersenne numbers are prime numbers. Example: 2 ^ 4 - 1 = 15 And 15 is divisible by both 3 and 5. It's highly unlikely for two Mersenne primes to be adjacent to each other as Mersenne numbers but not impossible. If you could verify your assertion, you might just be eligible. I'm guessing it's already been checked by no by GIMPS though.
Here's the complete list of all consecutive Mersenne numbers that are both primes: 3 = 2^2-1 and 7 = 2^3-1.
2^n-1 can only be a prime if n is a prime, because 2^(ab) - 1 is divisible by 2^a - 1 and 2^b - 1. And (2, 3) are the only two consecutive primes.
n00b
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Great,everyone starts using the new largest known prime number in their private key! That's like SUPER secure!
The money does not come from regular donations.
http://www.eff.org/awards/coop
(Prize money comes from a special donation provided by an individual EFF supporter, earmarked specifically for this project. Prize money does NOT come from EFF membership dues, corporate or foundation grants, or other general EFF funds.)
They could have made the reward $100,003 instead...