Largest Prime number discovered

[FromTexas]

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) -- Researchers at a Missouri university have identified the largest known prime number, officials said Tuesday.

The team at Central Missouri State University, led by associate dean Steven Boone and mathematics professor Curtis Cooper, found it in mid-December after programming 700 computers years ago.

A prime number is a positive number divisible by only itself and 1 -- 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on.

The number that the team found is 9.1 million digits long. It is a Mersenne prime known as M30402457 -- that's 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1.

Mersenne primes are a special category expressed as 2 to the "p" power minus 1, in which "p" also is a prime number.

"We're super excited," said Boone, a chemistry professor. "We've been looking for such a number for a long time."

The discovery is affiliated with the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a global contest using volunteers who run software that searches for the largest Mersenne prime.

Our many years quest is over! We have yet another number that can only be divided by itself and one! The implications... are... uh... well... That is unimportant! We found the largest prime number to date! Seven more years of this and we will find an even bigger one!



The worst part is you know they had themselves a little party for finding it.

 

[desertrat]

Yeah, but think of the spinoffs for the private sector.
And what a waste of man power.

 

[Vince]

Tell me again why this is important?

 

[Pete]

Neanderthals

 

[bcp]

WOW!
a new number.. who would have thought that by adding one continuously they would have eventually found a new number?

I think I just had an orgasim.

 

[FromTexas]

Yeah, but think of the spinoffs for the private sector.
And what a waste of man power.

It was a volunteer program, so I am not too worried about the expenditures. I just get this visual of it being like the NASA control center when a mission is succesful... a bunch of guys cheering and hugging each other... over a number that can only be divided by itself and one.

 

[ylexot]

I mean

 

[tirdun]

Very large primes are essentially only interesting to cryptographers and mathmaticians. Actually, only cryptographers and a small set of mathmeticians. Essentially, you can use huge prime numbers to create cypher keys that are difficult to hack using brute-force systems. If you're a math wiz they're interesting for a number of reasons, none of which have any practical purpose.

You could read a bookshelf worth of information on the subject and it really boils down to just that.

 

[FromTexas]

Very large primes are essentially only interesting to cryptographers and mathmaticians. Actually, only cryptographers and a small set of mathmeticians. Essentially, you can use huge prime numbers to create cypher keys that are difficult to hack using brute-force systems. If you're a math wiz they're interesting for a number of reasons, none of which have any practical purpose.

You could read a bookshelf worth of information on the subject and it really boils down to just that.

 

[Tinkerbell]

Finally!

I will finally sleep well tonight.

 

[Softballkid]

Very large primes are essentially only interesting to cryptographers and mathmaticians. Actually, only cryptographers and a small set of mathmeticians. Essentially, you can use huge prime numbers to create cypher keys that are difficult to hack using brute-force systems. If you're a math wiz they're interesting for a number of reasons, none of which have any practical purpose.

You could read a bookshelf worth of information on the subject and it really boils down to just that.

:shrug:

 

[tirdun]

Ok, my inner nerd broke free there.

I have no idea why the media gives 2cents about this stuff. Some group of math guys finds a massive number that has a special mathmatical property and they waste all sorts of digital ink fawning over it. 90% of the world doesn't know WTF they're so excited about. People feel dumb because they don't know why its supposed to be a big deal, which it simply isn't.

I'm sure it took a lot of work and math to come up with the latest super-prime. so kudos to the big brainiacs. Unless you work in one tiny corner of the computer-security world or happen to be a mathmatician working with primes this will have absolutely zero impact on your life.

So in a couple months or years when they discover super-prime+1 you can roll your eyes and go back to worrying about paying your inflated propery taxes.

 

[ylexot]

90% of the world doesn't know WTF a prime number is.

:fixed:

 

[Softballkid]

:fixed:

 

[Toxick]

I have no idea why the media gives 2cents about this stuff. Some group of math guys finds a massive number that has a special mathmatical property and they waste all sorts of digital ink fawning over it.

It's kind of like when someone (or some computer) calculates PI to the 59 billionth decimal place.

Who the eff cares?

A mere 39 digits of PI is sufficient enough to calculate the circumference of the known universe from its radius to within the diameter of the hydrogen atom.

I'm not seeing much of an applied use beyond that.

 

[StarCat]

It was a volunteer program

Thank God, I would hate to think they would pay people for crap like that.

 

[SamSpade]

So why is this important?

Take every prime known to man.
Multiply them together.
Add 1.
New prime (since it cannot be divisible by any other prime below it).

Big deal.

 

[czygvtwkr]

So why is this important?

Take every prime known to man.
Multiply them together.
Add 1.
New prime (since it cannot be divisible by any other prime below it).

Big deal.

Ah not true

 

[Lenny]

It was a volunteer program, so I am not too worried about the expenditures. I just get this visual of it being like the NASA control center when a mission is succesful... a bunch of guys cheering and hugging each other... over a number that can only be divided by itself and one.

Whose taxes paid for the computers and the programmers? I guess utilities and real estate are free in Central Missouri. But then what else did they have to do besides go to the Ozarks?