For those in penury of a grade school refresher , a prime number is fix as a cocksure integer that is only divisible by one and by itself . According toNew Scientist , Dr. Curtis Cooper of the University of Central Missouri latterly discovered the largest prime phone number ever as part of theGreat Internet Mersenne Prime Search(GIMPS ) . sleep together as M74207281 , the number has 22,338,618 digit , which is five million more than the previous prominent prime numeral ( which Cooper also divulge back in 2013 ) .
Curtis Cooper ’s find was announced earlier this month , but the computer retrieve the act style back in September of 2015 . A Emily Price Post on the Mersenne web log explains that a " bug prevented the email notification from being sent , " so even though the new heyday was found months ago , the find date reflect when a man first saw it . The routine joins the exclusive ranks of only 48 otherMersenne undercoat — uncommon numbers ( primes that are one less than a power of two ) which are name after the French monk Marin Mersenne who studied them in the former seventeenth C . ( There ’s a fistful of helpfulYouTube videosif you want a more in deepness look at Mersenne prim out . )
For the discovery , Cooper is eligible for a $ 3000 GIMPS enquiry discovery awarding , even though the bit itself does n’t really have any practical diligence . As explained in the Mersenne blog post : " Whileprime numbers are authoritative for cryptography , this efflorescence is too large to presently be of practical value . "
That said , the hunting itselfisuseful as a mean of test computer hardware , so it ’s not just about the destination .
To see precisely what a 22,338,618 - digit number looks like , head up over to the Mersenne site , and crack out the video below to hear an audience with Curtis about the discovery .
