STOP THE PRESS! LARGEST PRIME NUMBER FOUND.

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http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/12/11/prime.number.ap/index.html

― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:22 (twenty-one years ago)

AL QAEDA, BREATHE YOUR LAST BREATH. MATH IS GONNA GETCHA.

― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Student finds largest known prime number under his bong, where he left it.

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:25 (twenty-one years ago)

6 million digits plus though... that's gotta be a HUUUUUGE BONG, BRO!

― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:27 (twenty-one years ago)

It turned
up on Michigan State University
graduate student Michael
Shafer's off-the-shelf PC.

"It was just a matter of time," Shafer
said.

Ha ha, real life reflects what I made up!

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:28 (twenty-one years ago)

i will sleep easier tonight

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:31 (twenty-one years ago)

haha this caption: "A handful of the 6.3 million digits in the newly discovered prime number"

this is only the largest KNOWN SO FAR: there is another coming along any minute

there can be no "largest" prime: all you need to do is multiply all the known ones together and add one and that's a prime that's (much) larger than the largest known

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:31 (twenty-one years ago)

that's lovely.

what will it DO?

― hobart paving (hobart paving), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:32 (twenty-one years ago)

keeps them off the streets

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Bravo! 13 is the largest I could find.

― lawrence kansas (lawrence kansas), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:39 (twenty-one years ago)

it's here if you want to check it

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:39 (twenty-one years ago)

what will it DO?

Cryptography, at least initially.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:40 (twenty-one years ago)

ha! I found my phone number in there!

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:41 (twenty-one years ago)

On a related note, I have the world's largest prime member.

― may pang (maypang), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

OMG, it's the code to The Matrix!

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:51 (twenty-one years ago)

On a related note, I have the world's largest prime member.

LIAR

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:51 (twenty-one years ago)

On a related note, I have the world's largest prime member.

Yeah, but mine is number.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

From all the sex I have EVERY DAY!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:52 (twenty-one years ago)

it's here if you want to check it

They should've arranged the numbers in that txt file to make it look like a naked chick or something.

― may pang (maypang), Thursday, 11 December 2003 16:57 (twenty-one years ago)

there can be no "largest" prime: all you need to do is multiply all the known ones together and add one and that's a prime that's (much) larger than the largest known

this isn't true, mark!! otherwise it'd be a piece of piss to construct a new largest one. the number you've made is guaranteed to be divisible by a prime not on your list, but it certainly *isn't* guaranteed to be prime (and generally won't be).

― toby (tsg20), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:16 (twenty-one years ago)

the bit before the colon is true :(

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Now I feel silly for second guessing myself when I was going to argue this and letting it slide and then reposting it elsewhere. Pah, I've been out of maths for almost ten years and I don't even trust my memory any more.

Pah!

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:20 (twenty-one years ago)

i had to stop myself learning this new one, ten years ago i thought that learning big prime numbers, digits of pi etc was a good thing, but i've kicked the habit now. ahem.

― toby (tsg20), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:29 (twenty-one years ago)

what is the proof that there's no biggest prime?

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:30 (twenty-one years ago)

haha i shd be apologising on the "why am i a fool?" thread

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Start by imagining the largest prime, then think about it a bit more until you reach a paradox. Ergo, there's no largest prime.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I leave the exact details as an exercise for the Reader.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:32 (twenty-one years ago)

it's the modification of what you said, mark; if there are only finitely many, multiply them together and add 1. then this number is a product of primes (possibly only one prime!), none of which can be on your list.

modifications of this argument prove that there are inifinitely many primes which are one less than a multiple of 4 and other exciting results like that.

― toby (tsg20), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:33 (twenty-one years ago)

largest prime number evah!

― ken c, Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:34 (twenty-one years ago)

erm i was hoping size 72 was bigger than that...

― ken c, Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

72 isn't a prime font you idiot!

― Markelby (Mark C), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:36 (twenty-one years ago)

doh!

― ken c, Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:37 (twenty-one years ago)

ah! ok i feel a bit better - mods delete me from the "i am a fool" thread oh you already did :0

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:41 (twenty-one years ago)

oo i see - i'd never noticed that before - it could be divisible by two numbers larger than the largest prime on your list. obv really.

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:42 (twenty-one years ago)

is this the largest KNOWN prime number, or is it provable that there is no higher prime number than it?

― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

KNOWN. In my universe the largest prime is the prime that is smaller than the amount of stuff in the universe.

― Pete (Pete), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:54 (twenty-one years ago)

proof there can be no "highest" prime number already set out (ahem kinda joint effort) on the thread DV!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I love this part: As for [Shafer's] own standing in the world of mathematics, "I don't think I'm going to be recognized as I go down the street or anything like that."

― bnw (bnw), Thursday, 11 December 2003 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't be so sure, Shafer:
http://www.cartoons-cartoon.com/pictures/dork.jpg

― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 11 December 2003 18:03 (twenty-one years ago)

the cryptography begins!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 18:06 (twenty-one years ago)

i vaguely recall that there is no real proof there's no highest prime, but its generally sorta taken for granted?

also there's a zeta something function that accurately determines the relative probability of primes located around different points of the number spectrum?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 11 December 2003 18:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Sterl, there's a proof up above. (Maybe it's flawed, but I don't think so...)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 11 December 2003 18:26 (twenty-one years ago)

okay i was wrong -- Euclid proved it first:

http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/notes/proofs/infinite/euclids.html

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 11 December 2003 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

and here's a page full of them

http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/notes/proofs/infinite/index.html

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 11 December 2003 18:40 (twenty-one years ago)

haha "It is a common mistake to think that this proof says the product p1p2...pr+1 is prime"

YES DON'T RUB IT IN MR SO-CALLED EUCLID

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 19:11 (twenty-one years ago)

also as i recall from cryptonomicon (yipe!) the reimman zeta function which is the prime probability predictor is also a good basis for a pseudorandom generator.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 11 December 2003 19:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Someone walk me through the following bit:

Let P = p1p2...pr+1 and let p be a prime dividing P; then p can not be any of p1, p2, ..., pr, otherwise p would divide the difference P-p1p2...pr=1, which is impossible.

Namely that last part about p dividing the difference jive.

― Leee Iacocca (Leee), Thursday, 11 December 2003 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

the difference = (P - p1p2...pr)

now if p is one of p1, p2, ..., pr, and we know p divides P (see assumption), then
i. p divides P => P = a x p
ii. p divides p1p2...pr [its one of em] => p1p2...pr = b x p
hence
iii. (P - p1p2...pr) = (a-b) x p i.e. p divides (P - p1p2...pr)

but (P - p1p2...pr) = 1, and the only thing which divides 1 is 1, and p isn't 1

So contradiction follows

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Madness. Sorry mark, that Euclid guy is a genius.

― Leee Iacocca (Leee), Thursday, 11 December 2003 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

The clearer way through that bit is think of the adding case first. If a divides into b and a divides into c, then a divides into b+c. but anything that divides into c divides into -c as well (it's just another integer (-1) times c), so divides into b + (-c) which is b-c. It's like you can see why nothing except 1 divides into 24 AND 25, because it'd have to divide into the gap between.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:28 (twenty-one years ago)

This proof is a KRS-ONE song in the making.

― donut bitch (donut), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:30 (twenty-one years ago)

What? If a (12) divides into b (3) and a (12) divides into b (4) then a (12) divides into b+c (7)?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

3/12 + 4/12 = 7/12
and
(3+4)/12 = 7/12

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:43 (twenty-one years ago)

"divides into" = the preceding number is the divisor, the following number is the dividend

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Hrm. You appear to be holding the gun of knowledge the wrong way round. May I have a look?

xpost, please don't do that, Curtis.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry.. what did I do?

― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Somebody else could have found the number," he said. "You install the program on the computer and it takes care of itself." But "I get the credit, along with the people that developed the software."

Net Capitalism for Dummies runs rampant: someone else sweat bullets doing the work; I take the cred

― Nichole Graham (Nichole Graham), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

With that in mind, someone's bound to take credit for the world's smallest prime number by chucking a negative sign in there.

― may pang (maypang), Thursday, 11 December 2003 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

The 7/12 thing is both completely accurate and pointing in the wrong direction. But I'm being a bit of a prick here, and Curtis' second post is OTM.

4 divides into 28, 4 divides into 40 => 4 divides into 68

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 11 December 2003 21:00 (twenty-one years ago)

haha Farrell that is the most outrageously confusing clarification ever!

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

what makes a mathematical explanation clear?

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

haha I doubt it, though it might have a shot at the top ten.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 11 December 2003 21:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Transatlantic confusion may also be at work. I thought "divides into" was an American usage, or else I'd never have touched it. Oh dear.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Thursday, 11 December 2003 21:35 (twenty-one years ago)

I... am not going to bother trying to sort this out. Please use symbols!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 11 December 2003 23:16 (twenty-one years ago)

there can be no "largest" prime: all you need to do is multiply all the known ones together and add one and that's a prime that's (much) larger than the largest known
But this isn't a 'clean' prime, as it's so easy to produce using the method you've just described.

― Andrew (enneff), Thursday, 11 December 2003 23:20 (twenty-one years ago)

erm i kinda got that bit wrong as the rest of the thread will show

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 11 December 2003 23:22 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah, euclid skooled your ass

― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, 11 December 2003 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

my wife's studying maths

euler?

why you dirty son of a bitch.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 12 December 2003 04:34 (twenty-one years ago)

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