Latest Marsenne Prime Found
December 28th, 2005 by SplineGuy
Distributed computing enjoys prime success - ZDNet UK News
A Central Missouri State University team using more than 700 computers has found the largest prime number so far, a gargantuan 9,152,052-digit numeral
Wow! That’s about 1.3 million more digits than the last one found. There’s $100,000 in it for the first one to come up with a 10 million digit prime. Doesn’t look like that is far off.
NOTE to the non-mathematicians: a prime number is a number that is only by itself and 1. Large primes have become particularly useful in modern cryptography, the science of making and breaking codes. For more information on how you could get in on the action, check out GIMPS
