Martin Nowak’s 15 minutes of geek fame may be over. Mr. Novak, a German eye doctor who dabbles in industrial-strength mathematics, attracted attention last March when he discovered the world’s largest known prime number—a behemoth that ran nearly 8 million digits long.
But now he’s been surpassed by Steven Boone and Curtis Cooper, a pair of professors at Central Missouri State University, who have managed to find a prime number that runs 9.1 million digits. For Mr. Boone and Mr. Cooper, it’s been a long time coming: The duo started searching for primes nine years ago, and they now have more than 700 computers crunching numbers. (The Guardian)
Casting about for prime numbers might seem like an odd avocation, but there’s a financial incentive for skilled mathematicians. The first person to discover a "Mersenne" prime number over 10 million digits long will win $100,000, the top prize for the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.
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