An amateur mathematician has discovered a new monstrously large prime number of over 41 million digits, bigger than any ever calculated.
A niche mathematical obsession of mine has always been prime numbers. Specifically the ongoing search by mathematicians to find larger and larger primes. These numbers are stupendously massive, and we have just found a new one! (As you can see from the geeky timeline below, we've come a long way since the earlier discoveries.)
Luke Durant, a 36-year-old software engineer and monster prime hunter from the US, has just shown that if you multiply the number 2 by itself 136,279,841 times and then subtract one, you get a prime number.
That’s right...
(A quick reminder - 6 is not prime because we can write 6 = 2 x 3. But 7 is prime because while we can write it as 7 = 1 x 7, and we cannot break it down into smaller factors like we did with 6.)
The number 1 is not prime for technical reasons we will not go into here. So the primes start with 2 and continue 3,5,7,11,13,17,19… We have known for thousands of years that they are infinite. So at any given time there must be a largest prime number that we know of.
Durant currently holds the crown for the largest prime we know. And how large?
The number M136,279,841, as it is known, is a whopping 41,024,320 digits long! If we typed it out as a typical paperback novel, it would run to about 20,000 pages - or around 60 novels worth! And we know it is prime as confidently as we know 7 is prime.
Booyeah!
As part of my prime obsession, I gave a 17 minute TED Talk in the US on this topic in 2013. It is easy to understand - and contains a few pretty good laughs! - and is a great way to learn a little bit more on this fascinating topic. Do yourself a favour and watch below...
That’s all from me for now. If you'd like more geeky fun, please check out my other newsletters below, or connect with me on LinkedIn and/or X.
Yours in nerdiness,
Adam
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