Prime number with 9.8 million digits found

Orlando (FL) - Breaking its own record for determining the largest known prime number, a team at Central Missouri State University (CMSU) has announced that it has confirmed the newest prime number, which ranks in at over 9.8 million digits long.

The new prime number, scientifically calculated as 2^32,582,657 - 1, is referenced as M32582657. It has a total of 9,808,358 digits. When reaching enormous numbers like this, it becomes exponentially difficult to find numbers that are perfectly prime. The previously discovered prime number, which was announced in December of last year, had only 9,152,052 digits.

The CMSU faculty team are part of a team known as the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), along with tens of thousands of other researchers. Named after a French monk from over 350 years ago who studied prime numbers, the new number is the 44th in the special "Mersenne primes" class of prime numbers.

Mark Raby
Contributor

Mark Raby is a freelance writer for Tom's Hardware, covering a wide range of topics, from video game reviews to detailed analyses of computer processors.