Largest Prime Number Yet, Discovered
Even though every mathematician knows that there is no largest prime number, (for any prime number, a larger prime number exists), that did not stop some from searching for the largest prime number.
![Marin Mersenne](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/MarinMersenne.jpg)
Marin Mersenne
On January 25, 2013, Dr. Curtis Cooper of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), a professor at the University of Central Missouri, discovered the 48th Mersenne prime which is equal to a number which is about 17 million digits. This the 14th score of GIMPS in discovering the largest prime number yet. It took 39 days of non-stop computing for the primality proof and it was verified by different software and hardware. Dr. Cooper won $3000 for the discovery.
For young mathematicians who are aspiring to be prime hunters, $150,000 and $250,000 will be awarded to individuals or a group who will discover prime numbers with at least 100 million digits and at least 1 billion digits respectively.
Prime numbers are positive integers that are divisible by 1 and itself only. Mersenne primes are prime numbers of the form where
is prime. The smallest Mersenne primes are
.
Mersenne Primes are named after Marin Mersenne, a French monk who studied them in the 17th century.
Sources: GIMPS website, CNET News