Largest known prime number found
The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a cooperative computing project, helps find a prime that has nearly 13 million digits.
Here’s a number to savor: 243,112,609-1.
![The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, a cooperative computing project, helps find a prime with nearly 13 million digits.](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/8760.jpg?resize=300%2C208&ssl=1)
Its size is mind-boggling. With nearly 13 million digits, it makes the number of atoms in the known universe seem negligible, a mere 80 digits.
And its form is tidy and lovely: 2n-1.