Breaking news! On 19th January 2016, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search discovered a new largest prime number – we know 49 Mersenne primes, the largest of which is now $2^{74207281}-1$, a number containing over 22 million digits and full of primey goodness.
Internet Maths Person Matt Parker has responded to the news in spectacular style, by issuing a 14-minute long video explaining the discovery and its implications, as well as somehow scoring an interview with the actual discoverer of the new prime, Curtis Cooper.
The previous prime, $M_{48}$, was also discovered by Prof. Cooper, so he’s quite used to the media circus now; see our piece on the $M_{48}$ coverage from last time to see him doing a staggering number of interviews.
But Parker doesn’t stop there! He’s also hopped over to YouTube maths channel Numberphile to make a video showing off his ridiculous latest acquisition, which is a three-volume set of printed bound brown paper, onto which he’s had printed all 22,338,618 digits of Mersenne 49, for what I can only speculate must be some reason.
Matt also features in a second Numberphile video describing how the new prime was found using Lucas numbers, and a third video in the series is promised.
More information
Mersenne.org press release about the new prime
New World-Record Largest Prime Ever Found! – Standupmaths on YouTube
New World’s Biggest Prime Number (PRINTED FULLY ON PAPER) – Numberphile on YouTube
How they found the World’s Biggest Prime Number – Numberphile
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