An effort to find a largest prime numbers dubbed “The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS)” has become successful after the discovery of 274,207,281-1. It has over 22 million digits, which come under the category of Mersenne Prime Number.
- This newly discovered largest Prime Number is named as M74207281.
- It was calculated by multiplying together 74,207,281 twos then subtracting one.
- The search was conducted using software developed by the GIMPS team, called prime95.
The discovery has been made at the University of Central Missouri by the team headed by Curtis Cooper, which has broken the old record by approximately 5 million digits.
About Dr. Cooper & GIMPS:
Dr. Cooper is a professor at the University of Central Missouri. DR. Cooper and his university held 4 records for project prime.
- This discovery makes Dr. Cooper eligible for a $3000 GIMPS research discovery award.
- GIMPS next goal is to win the $150,000 award administered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation offered for finding a 100 million digit prime number.
About Mersenne primes numbers:
All Mersenne primes can be produced by multiplying together a certain number of twos and subtracting one. After the discovery of this largest Prime, the total MPN goes to 49. The first Mersenne primes are 3, 7, 31, and 127.
What is Prime Number?
A prime number is a whole number greater than one that can only be divided by itself and one. For eg: 2, 3, 5, and 7.