I've written about using the latent, distributed computing power of the Internet to solve problems. Today brought a news of a new success story. A project called GIMPS -- the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search reported that it found the 47th known Mersenne prime number. A Mersenne prime number is one which can be expressed as 2n - 1 where n is also a prime number. Examples include 7 which can be expressed as 23 - 1 and 31 which is 25 - 1.
The 47th Mersenne prime number was found by Odd Magnar Strindmo from Norway on April 12th, but not verified until June 12th. According to the GIMPS project, Odd has been with the project since 1996 and tested over 1400 candidates. This might not seem like many candidates in 13 years, but the 47th known Mersenne prime is a 12,837,064 digit number and expressed as 242,643,801 - 1.
It is interesting to note that the 47th known Mersenne prime is not the largest known Mersenne prime (which was also found by the GIMPS project). That distinction goes to 243,112,609 - 1 which was found last fall. All in all, the GIMPS project has found 13 Mersenne primes in its 13 year history.
The 47th Mersenne prime number was found by Odd Magnar Strindmo from Norway on April 12th, but not verified until June 12th. According to the GIMPS project, Odd has been with the project since 1996 and tested over 1400 candidates. This might not seem like many candidates in 13 years, but the 47th known Mersenne prime is a 12,837,064 digit number and expressed as 242,643,801 - 1.
It is interesting to note that the 47th known Mersenne prime is not the largest known Mersenne prime (which was also found by the GIMPS project). That distinction goes to 243,112,609 - 1 which was found last fall. All in all, the GIMPS project has found 13 Mersenne primes in its 13 year history.
