The largest known prime number has been discovered, smashing the previous record by more than 16 million digits.

Record For Largest Known Prime Number Broken By Amateur Mathematician Using Free Software It is the 52nd Mersenne prime to be found since they were first studied over 350 years ago.

Luke Durant, a researcher and amateur mathematician, has identified the largest new prime number known to humankind. The newly discovered prime number is 2 to the power of 136,279,841, then minus one.

The number was discovered by Harvey Dubner (1928–2019), "a mathematician known for his discoveries of many large prime numbers and prime number forms," as reported in Wikipedia.

Somewhere out there on the number line, huge prime numbers are lurking, waiting to be discovered. On Wednesday, a new one was. The Great Internet Mersenne Prime… ...

A prime number is a whole number that can only be divided by 1 and itself. A former Nvidia programmer discovered the world's largest known prime number using graphics processing units.

Luke Durant, a 36-year-old researcher who attended the Alabama School of Math and Science, has discovered the largest prime number known to mathematicians.

Prime numbers are only divisible by themselves and one. Robert Brook via Getty Images In the 17th century, French monk and mathematician Marin Mersenne developed a method to find prime numbers ...