一群學生找到第40個Mersenne質數，請參考！
GIMPS has discovered six Mersenne primes so far. On November 17, 2003 Michael Shafer discovered the 40th known Mersenne prime, 2^20996011-1. This is the largest known prime number. On November 14th 2001, Michael Cameron found the previous world record prime, 2^13466917-1. On June 1st 1999, Nayan Hajratwala found the prime, 2^6972593-1. On January 27th 1998, Roland Clarkson found the prime, 2^3021377-1. On August 24th 1997, Gordon Spence discovered the prime 2^2976221-1. In November 1996, Joel Armengaud found GIMPS' first prime, 2^1398269-1. Could you be next?
As a collector I get excited when we can announce a new prime. After over 2000 years of looking for Mersenne primes, a 40th has been found: 2^20996011-1. Of course it was GIMPS (the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search) again with its over 210,000 networked personal computers run by some 60,000 volunteers. They have found all of the recent Mersennes.
This prime was actually found by GIMPS volunteer Michael Shafer, a 26 year-old chemical engineering graduate student at Michigan State University, using a simple Dell computer in a university lab. The excellent press announcement on the GIMPS site carefully lays out the details, so I will omit them here. Instead I will address the reporter's usual problem--what is the angle? Is there a story here?
But first let me say again "wow! what a prime!" Congratulations to GIMPS (especially its founder George Woltman), Michael, and all of those involved. Thank-you again for giving an old prime collector something else to treasure. I wish it was me!
Will reporters find a story here?
That is a hard question. Reporters often like sex, or destruction, or violence. Sorry, none of that here. They hope for something radically new or earth shaking. Again, none of that here. This prime is roughly where expected, and adding one more example does not alter mathematics.
Sure, the number is big, but this behemoth has 6,320,430 decimal digits and is so large it has no physical counterpart. Most people think the US National Debt is big, and that has a mere 12 digits. The number of atoms in the universe has less than 90 digits. A reporter can't build a story on size alone anymore. Folks just don't know what big is.
http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/largest.html
http://www.mersenne.org/history.htm
孫文先敬上
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