Humungous Prime Number Discovered AP
posted: 6 HOURS 9 MINUTES AGOcomments: 64filed under: Science NewsPrintShareText SizeAAALOS ANGELES (Sept. 27) -
Mathematicians at UCLA have discovered a 13-million-digit prime number, a long-sought milestone that makes them eligible for a $100,000 prize.
The group found the 46th known Mersenne prime last month on a network of 75 computers running Windows XP. The number was verified by a different computer system running a different algorithm.
"We're delighted," said UCLA's Edson Smith, the leader of the effort. "Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds."
It's the eighth Mersenne prime discovered at UCLA.
Primes are numbers like three, seven and 11 that are divisible by only two whole positive numbers: themselves and one.
I've wondered this for years.
Why do we care?
Is there any useful purpose for knowing prime numbers?
Would someone kindly answer either of these questions please.