CMSU Finds Prime Number Again
Daniel Barber
Issue date: 9/14/06 Section: News
- Page 1 of 2 next >
CMSU's math researchers discovered the 44th
known Mersenne prime number less than nine
months after finding the 43rd one. On Sept. 4, a
9,808,358 digit-long prime number was discovered
on campus.
"The chance of this happening once is pretty small,
but twice is unbelievable," said Curtis Cooper, professor
of computer sciences and mathematics. "There's
probably a greater chance of getting struck twice by
lightning."
The number, known as M32582657, or 2 to the
32,582,657th power minus 1, was very close to claiming
the prize of $100,000 given to the first person or
team to find a 10 million-digit prime number.
Heading the project are Steven Boone, dean of
the college of Arts and Sciences, and Curtis Cooper,
professor of computer science and mathematics.
The CMSU team has been working with the Great
Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). GIMPS
has discovered 10 Mersenne primes since its
inception in 1996 by George Woltman and Scott
Kurowski.
Prime numbers are positive integers that can only
be divided by themselves and the numeral one. Mersenne
primes are one less than a prime power of 2.
The CMSU team is leading the way by testing
96,268 computer years of calculations on a Pentium
90 computer in a little more than nine years. They are
second with 34,544 numbers tested overall.
Cooper said "a lot of luck" was a factor in finding
the second consecutive Mersenne prime number.
Other possible factors were the large number of
computers running the program and a lot of people
in search of the first 10 million-digit prime rather
than the next largest 9 million-digit prime.
"We've had a lot of support from everybody
across campus - the administration, faculty and all
the people at Information Services have all been
really helpful," Cooper said. "Even though the prime
number has Steve and my names on it, it is really a
whole CMSU effort."
known Mersenne prime number less than nine
months after finding the 43rd one. On Sept. 4, a
9,808,358 digit-long prime number was discovered
on campus.
"The chance of this happening once is pretty small,
but twice is unbelievable," said Curtis Cooper, professor
of computer sciences and mathematics. "There's
probably a greater chance of getting struck twice by
lightning."
The number, known as M32582657, or 2 to the
32,582,657th power minus 1, was very close to claiming
the prize of $100,000 given to the first person or
team to find a 10 million-digit prime number.
Heading the project are Steven Boone, dean of
the college of Arts and Sciences, and Curtis Cooper,
professor of computer science and mathematics.
The CMSU team has been working with the Great
Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). GIMPS
has discovered 10 Mersenne primes since its
inception in 1996 by George Woltman and Scott
Kurowski.
Prime numbers are positive integers that can only
be divided by themselves and the numeral one. Mersenne
primes are one less than a prime power of 2.
The CMSU team is leading the way by testing
96,268 computer years of calculations on a Pentium
90 computer in a little more than nine years. They are
second with 34,544 numbers tested overall.
Cooper said "a lot of luck" was a factor in finding
the second consecutive Mersenne prime number.
Other possible factors were the large number of
computers running the program and a lot of people
in search of the first 10 million-digit prime rather
than the next largest 9 million-digit prime.
"We've had a lot of support from everybody
across campus - the administration, faculty and all
the people at Information Services have all been
really helpful," Cooper said. "Even though the prime
number has Steve and my names on it, it is really a
whole CMSU effort."
Be the first to comment on this story