Mersenne's Numbers

Abstract

AT various times NATURE has inserted notices of the successive discoveries in relation to Mersenne's Numbers. In the issue of August 12, 1909, Colonel Cunningham's discovery that 228479 was a factor of 2P−1 when p = 71 was announced: the other factor was 10334355636337793, but whether this was a prime or not was left undetermined. The same result was discovered last January by Mr. Ramesam, of Mylapore, Madras, and he subsequently resolved the larger factor into the product of 48544121 and 212885833. I think these results may be of interest to some of your readers.