Science & Technology

New largest prime number has 23 million digits

By T.K. Randall
January 5, 2018

Image: Backlit Keyboard
Credit: Colin via Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 (adapted) Written in shorthand as M77232917, the new number, which is named after French theologian and mathematician Marin Mersenne, was generated by multiplying two by itself 77,232,917 times.

It is around 1 million digits longer than its predecessor which was discovered back in 2016.

It was found using special software developed by George Woltman for the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) project and then verified as a prime number by three other people.

"Each new prime is an extension of the bounds of human mathematical knowledge," said Hartree Center researcher Iain Bethune.


Source: Smithsonian Magazine

Tags: Prime Number