Wednesday, December 28, 2005

43rd Known Mersenne Prime Found





The 43rd Mersenne Prime is a 9.1 million digit figure expressed as 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1. The number is rather difficult to comprehend.

George Woltman, founder of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) a grid of approximately 70,000 computers, when asked to describe the 43rd Mersenne Prime stated:

If you typed one number on a keyboard every second, it would take you 106 days to type out the whole number. This one number would have enough digits to fill up close to three Bibles.

The GIMPS home page is linked here.

The number is linked here.

An interesting article by Sharon Guadin at the internetnews is linked here.

Hat tip to Joe of the Pinehurst Thread.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

***The number is rather difficult to comprehend.***

Definitely... as it has nothing to do with an animal's digestive system or about Alberto Gonzales, umm... ahhh... or anything "nucular," "in the name of peace...," I think it's better to heed Clint Eastwood's advice on this one. CHECK !

Anonymous said...

EUREKA !

I believe I found the meaning of the Mersenne formula. And it turns out to be very simple:

--- Reduce the budget deficit by cutting social and economic government programs especially those affecting the middle class and the poorest of the poor. Then increase exponentially the government's debt limit. And the sum will go to Iraq for the benefit of the 1% and the reconstructors! HAPPY AND prosperous NEW YEAR, AMERICA !

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051229/pl_nm/economy_debtlimit_dc

 
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