Largest known prime number discovered in Missouri

[MowCowWhoHow III]

Source: BBC

The largest known prime number has been discovered by a computer at a university in Missouri in the US.

Prime numbers - such as two, three, five and seven - are divisible only by themselves and one, and play an important role in computer encryption.

The new prime is more than 22 million digits long, five million longer than the previous largest known prime.

Primes this large could prove useful to computing in the future.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35361090

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Hello 2^74207281-1

[caraher]

1. What a funny headline

I'm just picturing someone walking through a farmer's field stumbling across this number...

[jberryhill]

5. Missouri raises only the finest prime numbers

They get a lot of competition from cheap imported irrational numbers.

[rurallib]

14. I thought maybe it was found in one of those caves Mark Twain wrote about

buried there by a couple of nefarious river types before the Civil War.

[xocet]

19. True...the # was hiding under a rock just off the shoulder of Hwy 13 south of Warrensburg....n/t

[christx30]

22. "It was here the whole time!"

[jberryhill]

51. I saw your SAT results

[JackRiddler]

60. The write-up is also silly.

Computers do not discover things.

[tomm2thumbs]

2. Dang it, I was 21,999,553 digits in and they beat me!!! (unhappy face)

back to the chalkboard

[NCjack]

6. don't erase that chalkboard. Keep going. You may get the next one. /nt

[iandhr]

3. Pretty cool

[jberryhill]

4. What was it doing in Missouri?

[lastlib]

9. Well, where else could it see California, Nevada, Mexico,.....

...Cuba, Paris, Milan, Albany, and Moscow, all within a 250-mile radius?*


*(they're all towns in Missouri--it's why Missouri kids are HORRIBLE at geography! . )

[underpants]

10. It's really old. It was in Branson to catch the Presleys' Country Jubilee

I hear the bathrooms are really clean

[jberryhill]

15. Is there a buffet?

[underpants]

27. Yeah. Great soft rolls.

Easy to chew.

[lastlib]

32. (you don't need teeth--which works GREAT for some locals!)

(sez one of the Missouri locals!)

[REP]

29. Barbeque and blues.

[burrowowl]

37. Good question!

[Mike__M]

7. "Show me"

[jberryhill]

16. Ah, Missouri, the "You show me yours, and I'll show you mine" state

[Marthe48]

26. Missouri loves company

n/t

[Orrex]

8. Dammit--I was looking for it in Nevada.

What a dumbass!

[lastlib]

11. You weren't far off--all you had to do was

... go about 60 miles north of Joplin! (Nevada, MO)

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Joplin,+MO/Nevada,+MO+64772/@37.4656736,-94.6829743,10z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x87c86537eae4d3eb:0x981637362835a30e!2m2!1d-94.513281!2d37.0842271!1m5!1m1!1s0x87c6544f0f2fc807:0xc3bb889b0e69dd44!2m2!1d-94.3546719!2d37.8392052

[xocet]

20. Then drive from Nevada to Warrensburg (another 99 miles). UCM is in Warrensburg. n/t

[wilsonbooks]

40. But Nevada Missouri is home to

https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x87c6545c69368e43:0x4afd7a4d4b4b8367!2m5!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i100!3m1!7e1!4s//plus.google.com/photos/photo/109680141641500586621/6047576219570173314!5swhites+nevada+missouri+-+Google+Search&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDjNLY-bnKAhXqloMKHbwtC7YQoioIcTAK

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U1NW1Nuacdk/U-1Oh7-UdYI/AAAAAAAAALI/I1a0lZeYBZA/s236-k-no/

Been there for 75 years.

[xocet]

55. That may be so, but the Heinlein Room is located in the Butler Library...

http://www.butlerpubliclibrary.org/heinlein.aspx

.

...and my uncle has a rake.

[wilsonbooks]

56. That Room is nice

But look at our courthouse here in Carthage

https://www.google.com/search?q=carthage+mo+courthouse+pictures&espv=2&biw=1777&bih=861&site=webhp&tbm=isch&imgil=uFTpWY8SSqiVtM%253A%253B0SzzvqcvlfsRRM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fpenmac.com%25252Flocations%25252Fcarthage-mo%25252F&source=iu&pf=m&fir=uFTpWY8SSqiVtM%253A%252C0SzzvqcvlfsRRM%252C_&dpr=0.9&ved=0ahUKEwij_Pq-mrrKAhWpkIMKHbArD7MQyjcILw&ei=PHGgVqPuM6mhjgSw17yYCw

My uncle has a rake and a shovel.

[packman]

12. It was really on Oak Island

[krispos42]

13. I had a brief vision of it being a crop circle sort of thing

Or branded on the side of a steer.

[rpannier]

17. Number must be that huge

When I clicked the link for the story it wouldn't load. I guess the number overwhelmed it

[Odin2005]

18. They make it sound like it was just lying around somewhere.

[Tab]

21. Dammit, I tripped.

Holy keerist, it's a frickin' prime number, right here at my feet in Missouri. Who leaves this crap lying around? Sheesh - pick up after yourselves! Now everyone's going to want a goddamn prime number. Sustainable industry? I think not. Fracking is not cracking. And even fracking isn't working out so well.

[christx30]

23. Too bad you can't break it up to move it

out of your way. Can't divide it.

[Tab]

24. Touché! n/t

[47of74]

25. Ok, can we have someone try dividing it by zero now???

[Wilms]

28. I was only a matter of times before this happened. n/t

[cpwm17]

30. Now in book form:

[REP]

31. University of Central Missouri (Warrensburg)

I thought it'd be at the University of Missouri-Columbia or even UMKC but nope - not even in the MU system.

[Gore1FL]

41. I figured It was UM, MST, UMSL, or UMKC as well.

My best (and only) memories of Warrensburg involve marching band contests.

The water there tasted horrific. It's been over three decades and that still stands out. I hope they fix that now that they've got the prime number stuff done.

[The Second Stone]

33. The arrogance of white people

thinking that they "discovered" a number that was there all the time and was its own number. It existed. Right next to its neighbors.

Natural numbers factor-ability matters. Prime numbers should not be receiving all the efforts of professional mathematicians.

This is some good wine.

[jberryhill]

38. Race is not a factor

[The Second Stone]

45. The computers did all the work, yet the white guys

took the credit. The Man is at it again!

[ohnoyoudidnt]

44. I don't know if the computer was white

or the programmers involved, but what word should they have used instead of discover?

[The Second Stone]

46. They calculated the largest prime yet known using computers

that they gave overbearing micro managing instructions to.

[ohnoyoudidnt]

48. The bastards!

I hate micromanagers.

[lithiumbomb]

34. The largest number and cDonalds Theorem

The largest number and cDonalds Theorem Look Around You

[link:

|

[marble falls]

35. " Primes this large could prove useful to computing in the future..." ...

probably be very helpful for the next generation of programs used to compute even larger Primes. Very helpful indeed.

[Lars39]

36. Heh, headline makes it sound like the prime number was just wandering around in the woods.

[FLPanhandle]

39. All this time and not one Douglas Adams quote?

"The real Universe arched sickeningly away beneath them. Various pretend ones flitted silently by, like mountain goats. Primal light exploded, splattering space-time like gobbets of Jell-O. Time blossomed, matter shrank away. The highest prime number coalesced quietly into a corner and hid itself away forever."


I read the HHGTTG in HS and it perked my interest in prime numbers just off that passage.

[daleo]

42. What's it doing in Missouri?

Maybe because it is the show me state.

[jberryhill]

52. It took a while because it was indivisible

[William Seger]

57. Yeah, I think they tried to divide it up among several states

... and that just didn't work out.

[FLPanhandle]

43. I recommended it just to make sure the number of recs was a prime number.

13

[JoePhilly]

47. Missouri, that's where I left it!!!!

[Kennah]

49. Probably gonna have to split it with a guy in Florida n/t

[tclambert]

50. They were looking for the world's largest ball of twine and took a wrong turn.

[Paulie]

53. Actually it was lost for almost 4 months

But now it's found.

I've been helping GIMPS since the mid 1990's but no prime for me. But I helped disprove a bunch of candidate primes as composite.

[Kip Humphrey]

54. Missouri, eh? That was going to be the next state I was to look in.

[trillion]

58. now get to work on the next one.

[cpwm17]

59. Nature found prime numbers before man

13 and 17 year cicadas:

[Dr. Xavier]

61. If we have to encrypt 22 million digits long, the hackers have won... n/t