21 жовтня 2024 р. — Great Internet Search Mersenne Prime (GIMPS) виявив нове просте число Мерсенна 2 136279841 -1. Маючи 41 024 320 цифр , воно перевершує більш ніж на 16 мільйонів цифр попереднє найбільше відоме просте число, знайдене GIMPS майже 6 років тому.
Люк Дюрант, найактивніший учасник GIMPS, який використовує безкоштовне програмне забезпечення GIMPS , 12 жовтня обчислив нове просте число Мерсена. Після цього повідомлення сервер GIMPS розпочав ретельний процес незалежного підтвердження простого числа на кількох різних апаратних платформах за допомогою кількох різних програм. Цей процес завершився 19 жовтня.
This prime ends the 28 year reign of ordinary PCs finding the largest known prime. In 2017, Mihai Preda authored Mersenne prime search software that runs on GPUs. GPUs were primarily used in PCs as video cards or for mining cryptocurrency. Nowadays, video cards are also used to power the AI revolution. Durant's idea was to use these powerful GPUs that are now available in the cloud and heavily discounted when they are being under-utilized. Luke organized these cloud GPUs creating a kind of "cloud supercomputer" spanning 17 countries. After nearly a year of testing, Luke finally struck paydirt. On October 11, an NVIDIA A100 GPU in Dublin, Ireland, reported that M136279841 is probably prime. On October 12, an NVIDIA H100 in San Antonio, Texas, USA, confirmed primality with a Lucas-Lehmer test.
Luke, a 36 year-old researcher from San Jose, CA, and former NVIDIA employee, is one of thousands of GIMPS volunteers contributing spare CPU and GPU time in hopes of making a little bit of history. Mihai Preda, and later George Woltman, wrote the GPU software. Aaron Blosser keeps the GIMPS server running smoothly. This discovery is also made possible by the combined effort of each and every GIMPS volunteer testing Mersenne numbers that did not turn out to be prime. In recognition of all the above, official credit for this discovery goes to "L. Durant, M. Preda, G. Woltman, A. Blosser, et al."
The new prime is only the 52nd known Mersenne prime ever discovered. Mersenne primes were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. GIMPS, founded by George Woltman in 1996, has discovered the last 18 Mersenne primes. Volunteers download a free program to search for these primes, with a $3000 award offered to anyone lucky enough to find a new prime. Prof. Chris Caldwell maintained an authoritative web site on the largest known primes, and wrote an excellent history of Mersenne primes.
