282,589,933-1 aside, there’s a new, top-of-the-line behemoth in town. that’s right. A researcher and former NVIDIA employee has discovered the largest known prime number, 2136,279,841-1. This is more than 16 million orders of magnitude more than the previous record holder.
According to Wolfram MathWorld, a prime number is a positive integer that has no other positive integers except 1 and itself. More simply, these are numbers that are not evenly divisible except by 1 and the number itself. Some examples: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and the other end of the positive integer scale, 2136,279,841-1.
The newly discovered number is abbreviated as M136279841, making it easier to mention in conversation. Calculated by multiplying the two 136,279,841 times and subtracting 1. This number is only the 52nd of what are known as Mersenne primes, a special class of prime numbers studied by the monk Marine Mersenne in the early 1600s.
Luke Durant is a researcher, former NVIDIA employee, and contributor to the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). In fact, he is “GIMPS’ most prolific contributor,” according to the press release. GIMPS discovered the first Mersenne prime (35th in total) in 1996. The study discovered the last 18 Mersenne primes and allows volunteers to search for primes themselves using a free program.
Durant used a supercomputer made up of thousands of GPUs from 17 countries to find that number. It was first seen on the NVIDIA A100 in Ireland and later on the NVIDIA H100 in Texas. For his efforts, Durant will receive $3,000 from GIMPS.
Prime numbers detected by GIMPS are identified using the Fermat probability primality test and then rigorously checked by the Lucas-Römer primality test. “This is the first GIMPS prime discovered using the Likelihood Primes Test, and should the official discovery date be the day the Likelihood Primes Test was performed, or should the Lucas-Römer Primes Test be performed?” ”, the GIMPS team said. writes in the release. “I chose a date for Lucas and Roemer.”
What does this mean? It’s hard to say for now. “Currently, there are few practical uses for these large Mersenne primes,” the researchers said, adding, “The same question existed decades ago, until important cryptographic algorithms were developed based on primes.” he added. In addition to the thrill of the hunt and, of course, the prize money, finding prime numbers is akin to basic research in mathematics or computer science. In addition to actually identifying numbers, it also demonstrates the power of cloud supercomputers (networks of GPUs like the one that recently discovered M136279841).
I might add that a recent prime guaranteed a $3,000 prize. However, the first 100 million-digit prime number will receive a $150,000 prize, and the first billion-digit prime number will receive a $250,000 prize. So what are you waiting for?
