In a milestone for mathematics, 36-year-old former Nvidia programmer Luke Durant has unveiled the largest known prime number, designated “M136279841.” Spanning 41,024,320 digits, this prime is a Mersenne prime—a rare type of prime number taking the form 2ᵖ – 1, named after the 17th-century French monk Marin Mersenne. This achievement, the first significant prime discovery in six years, was announced on October 21 by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), a global initiative that unites volunteers in the quest for monumental primes.
Durant’s groundbreaking discovery, achieved after nearly a year of intensive work and investment, exemplifies the remarkable impact of citizen science and the power of collaborative computing. Reflecting on his motivation, Durant cited his passion for building large computing systems and his drive to explore “the boundaries of the known universe in whatever small way I was able.”
Mersenne primes hold unique importance beyond the fields of encryption and internet security, often serving as benchmarks of computational progress. Dr. Kevin Buzzard, a professor of pure mathematics at Imperial College London, commented on the broader implications of Durant’s achievement, noting that “the historical record of the world’s largest prime tells us something about the historical capability of computers and the progress of humanity in this area.”
To uncover this prime, Durant combined cloud computing resources, effectively constructing a “virtual supercomputer.” As part of GIMPS, volunteers across the globe run project software on their personal computers, contributing to the ongoing search for larger primes.
Durant described his efforts as a testament to human ingenuity and collaboration, saying, “These enormous prime numbers are, in some senses, the largest ‘unique pieces of information’ in the known universe.”
