Prime95: World's largest prime number found

[Mark R]

On May 15, 2004, Josh Findley discovered the 41st known Mersenne Prime, 2^24,036,583-1. The number is nearly a million digits larger than our last find and is now the largest known prime number!

Link

 

[lobadobadingdong]

prine95 discovers neat facts and all, but what purpose can finding such large prime numbers actually do for humanity?

 

[amdxborg]

WoW! That's pretty awesome! Thanx Mark R! 😉

 

[Viztech]

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
prine95 discovers neat facts and all, but what purpose can finding such large prime numbers actually do for humanity?

Encryption for one.

Ken

 

[Psych]

Now I can make my RSA encryption >10 million digits! They should make another RSA challenge with that number, and then make the prize the company or something.

 

[GhettoFob]

cool

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: viztech

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
prine95 discovers neat facts and all, but what purpose can finding such large prime numbers actually do for humanity?

Encryption for one.

Ken

I never thought about that. Thanks I couldn't find much on thier site about it.

 

[SinfulWeeper]

Originally posted by: lobadobadingdong
prine95 discovers neat facts and all, but what purpose can finding such large prime numbers actually do for humanity?

Prime numbers are also used in space flight navigation in conjunction with pi. How exactly, I do not remember. Was back in my young teen days when I was watching some kind of program simalar to what the discovery channel shows. I can not remember the name of the show if my life depended on it. But having the largest primes and the longest digits of pi is very important as inacurate numbers can have you miss your destination my thousands of miles and be very fuel inefficient. While such long numbers are irrelivent here on earth for travel, think of a destination hundreds of thousands miles, or million miles away from earth... having such large numbers helps tremendously in space flight.

Current technology (if like in Star Trek money becomes a thing of the past) can get us to Alpha Centari in, if memory serves correctly, 4-6 generations (one way). The only reason such space crafts are not built is their cost. The people who fund it will never see the return of their investment, if one even comes. Should such a craft ever be built, having such large numbers for prime and pi will make our current trips to the moon or sister planets be very important since comparison would be along the like of 43.3 vs
43.333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333335

Anyway hope that helps out for another explanation.

 

[bdjohnson]

lol you can buy a poster with the whole number printed on it in 1 point font.

 

[Shame]

Apparently they use that number to price gasoline as well.. 😀

 

[Orange Kid]

Originally posted by: Shame
Apparently they use that number to price gasoline as well.. 😀

LOL
Too funny 😱🙂

 

[Night201]

Originally posted by: Shame
Apparently they use that number to price gasoline as well.. 😀

LOL

 

[Zbox]

Originally posted by: Shame
Apparently they use that number to price gasoline as well.. 😀

lol, too awesome 😉

 

[SinfulWeeper]

Originally posted by: Shame
Apparently they use that number to price gasoline as well.. 😀

Damn u.... now I have to clean off my friends keyboard after I spit out my coffee all over the place 😀:|

 

[Shame]

Originally posted by: SinfulWeeper

Originally posted by: Shame
Apparently they use that number to price gasoline as well.. 😀

Damn u.... now I have to clean off my friends keyboard after I spit out my coffee all over the place 😀:|

Sorry. <evil grin> 😛