Monday, March 3, 2008

Math: A PRIME NUMBER RECORD


There will never be the last number. You can add a zillion zeros and there will still be a greater number. Recently, a computer search, gave a prime number that was 7,816,230 digits long! Can you believe it? Even if you wrote very quickly, it would take you over 9 days to copy it! That itself tell you how big it is!


It's hard to tell when a very big number is prime. It takes a long time even with all the shortcuts that mathematicians have figured out! This number was found as a result of Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). Many people around the world have gave sometime to find it. 250,000 computers are involved in GIMPS. This number turned up on Martin Nowak's computer. This number was about 500,000 digits greater than the previous one.

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