48th Mersenne prime found

Re:48th Mersenne prime found by undershirt on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @11:32AM (#5171502)

I first wondered they wouldn't just multiply all the prime numbers up to this new prime and then subtract one from it to get an even bigger prime number.

But then I realized that they're not searching for them in sequence. I guess it's a very sparse table of primes once you get up there in the magnitudes.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:48th Mersenne prime found by robterrell on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @11:37AM (#5171528)

Or, you could test that theory with some smaller primes and realize it wouldn't work.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:48th Mersenne prime found by undershirt on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @11:57AM (#5171679)

oops.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:48th Mersenne prime found by cantos on Tuesday February 05, 2013 @12:18PM (#5171818)

It will not necessarily be a larger prime. But it will always be divisible by a larger prime. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euclids_theorem (Though not necessarily the next largest prime).

The problem with this approach is that the product of the first n primes grows exponentially as the number of primes increases.

[ Parent | on HN ]