Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), a relative newcomer to the Big Internet, has broken a six-year drought to find the next simple oasis in the desert of boring old complex numbers.
With the number’s incredible length of 41,024,320 decimal places, it would take months to write the entire number. In short—and if it’s a little harder to estimate—this is 1 less than the result of 2 raised to 136,279,841. Or to use its official name, it is called M136279841.
Former NVIDIA employee Luke Durant (Luke Durant) began to join the search only last October, although he was a little luckier than the newcomer. Durant used thousands of GPU servers spread across 24 data center locations in 17 different countries to run the software on his behalf.
On 11 October this year he appeared as a candidate for victory on presenter M136279841 in Dublin. A day later, another host in Texas provided a digital confirmation confirming his legendary status as the new math Optimus Prime.
Prime numbers are numbers greater than 1 that are not the product of two smaller numbers. At first glance, they seem quite modest: 2, 3, and 5 share space on the number line with integers such as 4 and 6, which can be formed by simple multiplication.
But the further you go, the harder it becomes to find numbers that don’t lend themselves to such simple division, leading to the question of whether it’s possible to eventually run out of them. To save you from having to pull your socks off and start counting, the answer is no. Prime numbers are an infinite resource. But that doesn’t mean it’s easier to find.
Aside from the loads of fancy equipment used by Durant and his colleagues, the hunt for prime number monsters hasn’t changed much since 17th-century French monk Marine Mersenne noticed these remarkable numbers and lent his name to his method of finding prime numbers. It has a certain taste.
“Prime Mersenne numbers” are numbers of the form 2n — 1. Of course, not all numbers in this form are prime. For example, 2x2x2x2 = 16 and 1 less equals 15 (combination of 3 and 5). And not all prime numbers belong to the Mersenne set.
But because this approach is effective at finding prime numbers and can be tested relatively easily, it has become the preferred method of communities such as GIMPS, which has sifted 18 numerical gems from a vast dune of composites since its inception in 1996. It proves the total number of known numbers up to 52.
The previous record, set in 2018 by Patrick LaRoche of Ocala, Florida, by subtracting the power of 2 to 1 to 82,589,933, was just under 25 million. Laroche ran a free prime number search program on its own hardware; This means that Durant’s success in using the GPU network opens a new era in finding Mersenne prime numbers.
So why would you try to explore such large numbers? The chances of winning fame, bragging rights and prize money aren’t that great. As GIMPS co-founder George Waltman told the Washington Post’s Ben Brush, “It’s fun for math geeks.”
Large prime numbers are well-suited for encryption, but with quantum computing on the horizon that could crack digital safes, those days are numbered.
Prime numbers, which are considered the atoms of all natural numbers, also have their own beauty. There is no doubt that soon there will be a new Mersenne prime in the banks of increasingly smart technologies around the world.
It will be number 53 on this list. Hit the primer.
Source: Port Altele
