BBC, 5 December 2001,"The largest prime number yet discovered has just been revealed to the world. The new number, expressed as 213,466,917-1, contains 4,053,946 digits [and] was discovered by Michael Cameron, a 20-year-old Canadian..."
Metro, 4 December 2003, "The maths world was celebrating last night after the discovery of the largest known prime number. It has 6,320,430 digits ... American Michael Shafer found it after joining the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. He said: 'After a short victory dance, I rang my wife and GIMPS friends'".
Metro, 5 January 2006, "After years of calculating [a computer] has come up with a prime number 9.1 million digits long - the largest ever found. Steve Boone, who led the study at Central Missouri State University, said: 'We are very excited.'"
BBC, 28 September 2008, "Mathematicians in California could be in line for a $100,000 prize (£54,000) for finding a new prime number which has 13 million digits. Edson Smith, the leader of the winning UCLA team, told the Associated Press news agency: 'We're delighted. Now we're looking for the next one, despite the odds.'"
If there is a pattern here, and in maths there usually is, it takes an average of 830 days to discover a new prime number, and the number of digits goes up by 48% each time, so the next prime number will have about 19 million digits and will be discovered on 5 January 2011.
Sunday, 28 September 2008
"Huge new prime number discovered"
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1 comments:
Intersting observation. I wonder if it become as famous as Moore's Law (doubling of transistors on a chip every 2 years). Moore's Law was was an off the cuff remark to a journalist as well.
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