Thirty-mile long prime number found: Biggest ever

William Atkins
Saturday, 20 September 2008 20:30

Science - Biology

The Great Internet Marsenne Prime Search (GIMPS) project and American computer manager Edson Smith have teamed up to find a prime number that is almost 13 million digits in length—the largest prime number ever found.


A prime number, sometimes called simply “a prime,” is any natural number that is divisible only by 1 and itself.

For example, the prime number “11” is only divisible by “11” and “1.” An infinite number of prime numbers exist.

The first twelve prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, and 37.

GIMPS (or, Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search) is a volunteer effort that uses free downloadable software from the Internet to search for Mersenne prime numbers.

American computer scientist George F. Woltman founded the organization.

A Mersenne number (M_n) is a positive integer that is one less than a power (n) of two, or:

M_n = 2ⁿ -1.

And, now, for the "Big" news.

See the largest prime number ever found on page two.