We love large numbers: Googol, a large number that is the basis for the name Google. Trillion, the basis for the U.S. bail out, etc. Now using ordinary computers loaned by ordinary people, there is a new Big Number. It’s the largest prime number to date running over 13 million digits. If you recall, a prime number is 2n-1. You may now leave the Matrix.
There’s not a hope of printing the prime number: the resulting number would be 30 miles long! or take up 13MB or so of plaintext.
The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, a computing project that uses volunteers’ computers to hunt for primes, found the prime and just confirmed the discovery
(gadgets.boingboing.net)
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