New Prime Number found!

conjur

No Lifer
Jun 7, 2001
58,686
3
0
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.
 

sswingle

Diamond Member
Mar 2, 2000
7,183
45
91
Does that mean the project is over, or will they look for another?
You all can come over to Seti ;)
 

BlackMountainCow

Diamond Member
May 28, 2003
5,759
0
0
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

Lifer
Feb 22, 2000
12,099
47
91
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! :p

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