Former Nvidia Programmer Discovers Record-Breaking 41 Million-Digit Prime Number
Luke Durant, a 36-year-old former Nvidia programmer, has discovered the world’s largest known prime number, consisting of 41,024,320 digits. The number, called M136279841, is a Mersenne prime, a rare type of number that can be written in the form 2ᵖ-1. The historic finding was announced by The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), a community-based project. Durant’s discovery is notable as the first to be uncovered using graphics processing units (GPUs), which are renowned for their high-speed mathematical equation performance and data processing capabilities. Durant is eligible for a $3,000 GIMPS research discovery award for his finding, which he plans to donate to his old school, the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science.
John Q. Hosedrinker