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They also appear to claim that the newly discovered prime is "2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times". It's been a while since I studied math, but I'm pretty s
by crntaylor 14y ago
They also appear to claim that the newly discovered prime is "2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times". It's been a while since I studied math, but I'm pretty sure that's not prime.
- moccajoghurt 14y agoHe just phrased it unclear. He should have written it like that: >2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times (written mathematically as 2^57,885,161) - 1
- ZeroGravitas 14y agoThey get it wrong in the image tagline too. "A small portion of the 17 million digits in the number 2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times -- the first Mersenne prime discovered in four years. (FoxNews.com)"
- rplnt 14y agoThey missed the "minus one", it's correct in the second part of the same sentence.
- deltasquared 14y agoIt is true that 2 multiplied by it's self 57,885,161 times is not prime. However, if you subtract 1 from that the result is prime.