Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Get Yo’ Geek On
I’m not sure how this will better the human race; cure Asian Bird Flu, create an emission-free car, remove Katie Couric from my television etc. but researchers in Missouri have found the largest prime number- and it’s really large.
So, if you have one of those ultra-smart I.T. guys at work who has that nasty habit of making you feel like an idiot, and you've dreamed of getting into his network to ‘alter things’ try using M30402457, after all 1138 is so overused.
The number that the team found is 9.1 million digits long. It is a Mersenne prime known as M30402457 — that's 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1.
Mersenne primes are a special category expressed as 2 to the "p" power minus 1, in which "p" also is a prime number.
So, if you have one of those ultra-smart I.T. guys at work who has that nasty habit of making you feel like an idiot, and you've dreamed of getting into his network to ‘alter things’ try using M30402457, after all 1138 is so overused.
