Tuesday 5 February 2013

New 17-million-digit monster is largest known prime

The largest known prime number has just shot up to 2^{57 885 161} − 1, breaking a four-year dry spell in the search for new, ever-larger primes.

All prime numbers can only be divided by themselves and 1. The rare Mersenne primes all have the form 2^p − 1, where p is itself a prime number.

The new prime, which has over 17 million digits, is only the 48th Mersenne prime ever found. The previous record holder, 2^{43 112 609} − 1, has just under 13 million digits.

New Scientist