 Links2Go Key Resource Number Theory Topic |
On Sunday 24th August 1997 I found the 36th Mersenne Prime at the time it was the world's largest known prime number. It took my Pentium 100 PC fifteen days to prove the number prime. David Slowinski has verified the result on a Cray T90 Supercomputer. This new number is 895,932 digits in length.
Please note though that I was just the lucky one of over 4500 volunteers all searching for these gigantic numbers, why not join us......
Stands for the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, and is a world wide project involving over 4500 participants (@ September 1998), coordinated by George Woltman who maintains the GIMPS site and Scott Kurowski who runs the Primenet Internet Server. Every member of the group runs some Free Software to check these very large numbers for primality. Software is available for Windows (3.X, 95 & NT), Macintosh and Unix.
Please note that this size of task would have previously only been possible on large Supercomputers such as the Cray that was used to verify this result, but by running the software on thousands of individual machines we can collectively surpass the power of even the most powerful supercomputer.
On January 27th 1998, Roland Clarkson found the current world record, 23021377-1. Read about this at The Guardian Online
I saw it as my chance to make my (tiny) mark in the history books, you too could go down in the annals of all time. Or perhaps simply because it hasn't been done yet, if you decide to take part you will be pushing back the limits of explored number theory. Wouldn't you like to be the person who discovers the first million digit prime number ?
There is no fortune unfortunately, just a passing moment of fame - in my case five months. Besides it's something to tell the granchildren about..."I remember the time when I was a world record holder....."
An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only divisors are one and itself. For example, the number 10 is not prime because it is divisible by 2 and 5. A Mersenne prime is a prime of the form 2p-1. The study of Mersenne primes has been central to number theory since they were first discussed by Euclid in 350 BC. The man whose name they now bear, the French monk Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), made a famous conjecture on which values of p would yield a prime. It took 300 years and several important discoveries in mathematics to settle his conjecture.
With most 'pure research' it is the spin-off inventions that are of most practical use. The same is true in the search for large primes. When testing Mersenne number to see if they are prime one must repeatedly multiply very large integers. Recently Richard Crandall at Perfectly Scientific discovered ways to double the speed of the Fast Fourier Transforms which are used to do this. These transforms are used in numerous other scientific applications. Richard Crandall also patented the Fast Elliptic Encryption system which uses Mersenne primes to encrypt and decrypt messages.
A 100 MHz Pentium with 40MB ram...
GIMPS First port of call to join the project
Current Status of search
Join a mailing list for in-depth discussions of Mersenne numbers
Neat banners you can add to your web page.
© Thursday 4th February 1999
