In a classic example of the intersection between maths and news, there’s been a new Mersenne prime discovered! Mersenne primes are numbers of the form $2^p – 1$, where $p$ is a prime number. They’re highly valued as a source of large prime numbers, since testing the primality of a (suspected) prime of this form is much easier than for general prime numbers.

The new prime, which is the 48th known Mersenne prime, was found by Curtis Cooper on 25th January 2013, at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, using GIMPS (the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search) and has over 17 million digits. Cooper was also involved in the discovery of $M_{43}$ and $M_{44}$.

While Curtis has been granted a research discovery award of $3,000 by GIMPS, it doesn’t secure a cash prize from the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation), like the first million-digit and ten-million digit primes did ($50,000 and $100,000 respectively), or like the first 100-million digit one will when it’s found ($150,000).

If you’d like a laugh, check out the coverage on the Fox News website, which includes the gems “2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times, written mathematically as 2^57,885,161-1″ and “Prime numbers, which are divisible only by themselves and one, have little mathematical importance.” (EDIT: see comment below for an update on Fox’s article, which they’ve hastily corrected around 11am).

via Ivars Peterson on Twitter.

References

GIMPS Project Discovers Largest Known Prime Number, 2^57,885,161-1, announcement by GIMPS.

New 17-million-digit monster is largest known prime in New Scientist.