New Prime Number found!

[conjur]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=528&e=2&u=/ap/20031211/ap_on_hi_te/biggest_prime_number

DETROIT - More than 200,000 computers spent years looking for the largest known prime number. It turned up on Michigan State University graduate student Michael Shafer's off-the-shelf PC.

"It was just a matter of time," Shafer said.

The number is 6,320,430 digits long and would need 1,400 to 1,500 pages to write out. It is more than 2 million digits larger than the previous largest known prime number.

Shafer, 26, helped find the number as a volunteer on an eight-year-old project called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.

 

[titanmiller]

Cool, human knowledge just keeps growing.

 

[networkman]

Yep, saw that this morning. 🙂

 

[Actaeon]

Thats cool 🙂

When is SoB going to get some headlines?

 

[sswingle]

Does that mean the project is over, or will they look for another?
You all can come over to Seti 😉

 

[ProviaFan]

So Prime95 does more than just system stress testing? 😉

 

[RaySun2Be]

😎

 

[BlackMountainCow]

I wonder what they're gonna do with that number ... I mean just the printing of it woulf fill a whole book or two!

 

[BadThad]

Man, Dell has made some serious hardware advancements. According to the article:

Shafer ran a Dell Dimension PC with 2 gigahertz of memory and an Intel Pentium 4 microprocessor _ 'like you'd get at Circuit City' _ in his office for 19 days until Nov. 17

I want 2GHz RAM! 😛

BTW - What a lucky bastage that guy! Runs a DC client for 19 days and finds a Prime? OMG! 😕:clock: