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from the how-many-bits-required-to-represent-that-solution? dept.
New largest known prime number found:
RALEIGH, NC., January 3, 2018 -- The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 277,232,917-1, having 23,249,425 digits. A computer volunteered by Jonathan Pace made the find on December 26, 2017. Jonathan is one of thousands of volunteers using free GIMPS software available at www.mersenne.org/download/.
The new prime number, also known as M77232917, is calculated by multiplying together 77,232,917 twos, and then subtracting one. It is nearly one million digits larger than the previous record prime number, in a special class of extremely rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes. It is only the 50th known Mersenne prime ever discovered, each increasingly difficult to find. Mersenne primes were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. GIMPS, founded in 1996, has discovered the last 16 Mersenne primes. Volunteers download a free program to search for these primes, with a cash award offered to anyone lucky enough to find a new prime. Prof. Chris Caldwell maintains an authoritative web site on the largest known primes, and has an excellent history of Mersenne primes.
The primality proof took six days of non-stop computing on a PC with an Intel i5-6600 CPU. To prove there were no errors in the prime discovery process, the new prime was independently verified using four different programs on four different hardware configurations.
- Aaron Blosser verified it using Prime95 on an Intel Xeon server in 37 hours.
- David Stanfill verified it using gpuOwL on an AMD RX Vega 64 GPU in 34 hours.
- Andreas Höglund verified the prime using CUDALucas running on NVidia Titan Black GPU in 73 hours.
- Ernst Mayer also verified it using his own program Mlucas on 32-core Xeon server in 82 hours. Andreas Höglund also confirmed using Mlucas running on an Amazon AWS instance in 65 hours.
Jonathan Pace is a 51-year old Electrical Engineer living in Germantown, Tennessee. Perseverance has finally paid off for Jon - he has been hunting for big primes with GIMPS for over 14 years. The discovery is eligible for a $3,000 GIMPS research discovery award.
I once had Pi (π) memorized to 200 decimal places, but that has fallen to only 120 digits. What mathematical/numerical oddity/skill do you have?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday January 05 2018, @12:51PM (2 children)
I can only remember like two dozen places to get good pie and I'd have to think about the second dozen for a few minutes.
I don't have any special mathematical quirks. Hell, I don't even remember half of the math I learned in school because I've never once used it outside of school. I can, however, relearn anything I find a need to know about as fast as I can google it up.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 05 2018, @02:29PM (1 child)
I only get to sample the wife's pie these days, and only in the evening on weekends.
I used to like when a lady would show up at my apartment with a warm pie. Sometimes she'd bring a friend and we'd all be sharing her pie that night. My favorite was probably sweet, sweet cherry but the girls preferred savory with meat deep inside. Often Greek style.
Nice cup cakes too!
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday January 06 2018, @02:33AM
So her pussy had the look, feel, and smell of a Gyro? That's probably the most accurate description of a vagina I've ever read, right down to the natural yogurt-making ability.