Distributed computing plus lots of time equals...

[Figrin D'an]

... the discovery of the 40th Mersenne Prime Number.

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

http://www.mersenne.org//20996011.htm


All 6,320,430 digits of it.

:)

[Tear]

Ack math..i tried to read those articles but my eyes glazed over after the first few sentances explaining..something...

What can they use a new prime number for? Or is it just a "oh neat look what we found" type of thing?

[Figrin D'an]

It's mostly just for fun, although it can be a good way to stress-test computer hardware, and it can help in writing new algorithms.

Not to mention that you can win up to $50,000 if you are the one that discovers the first ten million digit Mersenne prime.