MSU student finds largest prime number

[Woodrow]

DETROIT - More than 200,000 computers spent years looking for the largest known prime number. It turned up on Michigan State University graduate student Michael Shafer's off-the-shelf PC.

"It was just a matter of time," Shafer said.

The number is 6,320,430 digits long. It would take 1,400 to 1,500 pages to write out. It is more than 2 million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number.

Shafer, 26, helped find the number as a volunteer on an 8-year-old project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.

Tens of thousands of people volunteered the use of their PCs in a worldwide project that harnessed the power of 211,000 computers, in effect creating a supercomputer capable of performing 9 trillion calculations per second.

Shafer ran an ordinary Dell computer in his office for 19 days until Nov. 17, when he glanced at the screen and saw "New Mersenne prime found."

A prime number is a positive number evenly divisible only by itself and 1 - 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on. Mersenne primes are a special category, expressed as 2 to the "p" power minus 1, where "p" also is a prime number.

In the case of Shafer's discovery, it was 2 to the 20,996,011th power minus 1.

The find was independently verified by other participants in the project.

Mersenne primes are rare but are critical to the branch of mathematics called number theory.

Shafer said the method by which the number was found - harnessing many computers together - is more important than the number itself.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/health/bal-te.primenumber11dec11,0,7198855.story?coll=bal-health-headlines

[Woodrow]

Only thing I wanna know is why are these nerds messing around with prime numbers when i don't have:

• a flying car
• a cold vaccine
• a jet backpack
• an AIDS vaccine
• A house on the moon

[JTSimon]

Only thing I wanna know is why are these nerds messing around with prime numbers when i don't have:

• a flying car
• a cold vaccine
• a jet backpack
• an AIDS vaccine
• A house on the moon

• Tooth Regeneration

 ;D

[Don Jacob]

Only thing I wanna know is why are these nerds messing around with prime numbers when i don't have:

• a flying car
• a cold vaccine
• a jet backpack
• an AIDS vaccine
• A house on the moon

• Tooth Regeneration

 ;D

sounds more like something british scientists should be searching for,lol

[JTSimon]

Only thing I wanna know is why are these nerds messing around with prime numbers when i don't have:

• a flying car
• a cold vaccine
• a jet backpack
• an AIDS vaccine
• A house on the moon

• Tooth Regeneration

 ;D

sounds more like something british scientists should be searching for,lol

Then I would never have to go to the dentist... ;D

[Trauma-san]

What a nerd.

[Don Rizzle]

what a waste of time it can be put absolutly no practical use.

[[Stoned]Jesus H. Christ[Wheat]]

what a waste of time it can be put absolutly no practical use.

serously why don't they spend more time doing stuff that will benefit people like looking cures for aids, cancer and that type of shit.

[Don Seer]

no but they have massive implications for national security... nevermind...

[[Stoned]Jesus H. Christ[Wheat]]

no but they have massive implications for national security... nevermind...

...have you been drinking agian?  

[Don Seer]

no.. prime numbers are crucial to high level i.e. "strong" forms of encryption...

[Don Seer]

http://home.sandiego.edu/~baylward/web%20page%20encryption.htm

"Prime Numbers
Presently the most secure type of encryption involves using prime numbers.  A prime numbers is one which can only be divided by itself and one.  For example, 2,3,5,7, and 11 are prime numbers.  When prime numbers are multiplied together, their product is a number that can only be divided by those prime numbers.  For example 5 x 7 = 35 which can only be divided by 5 and 7.  It is quite simple to multiply prime numbers but much harder to recover the two prime numbers that are it's factors.  This "one-way" function is the underlying idea in prime number encryption.
"

[budsmokeronly]

Wow, this may be the most useful piece of information known to mankind

[Don Seer]

lol...

btw.. there are distributed computing projects for cancer research n stuff like that.. and of course SETI... so if u really feel the need go find em

[Maestro Minded]

prime numbers is one of the fundameltals in computer security (like overseer said)

Only thing I wanna know is why are these nerds messing around with prime numbers when i don't have:

a flying car
a cold vaccine
a jet backpack
an AIDS vaccine
A house on the moon

^^ the problems with those things have to do with other technologies than "computers"

flying cars - aerodynamics (technically impossible)
cold vaccine - biology/chemistry (technically impossible since there's millions of different viruses sharing the same symptoms)
jet backpack - aerodynamics
AIDS - biology/chemistry
house on the moon - physics