Day +687 : A US$100,000 award! Just to find a number :-) (1)

I am fine today.

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is awarding US$100,000 to those who find a prime number with at least 10,000,000 (ten millions) decimal digits :-) You can read the detail here.

Do we need to be a great mathematician to participate in the search? No, anyone with a computer can join the search.

There is a concerted effort organized by Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) to find Mersenne Prime. There are only 44 known Mersenne Prime till today, and the last 10 known Mersenne Prime was found by GIMPS :-)

What is Mersenne Prime? The GIMPS website explains it very well.

"Prime numbers have long fascinated amateur and professional mathematicians. An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only divisors are one and itself. The first prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, etc. For example, the number 10 is not prime because it is divisible by 2 and 5. A Mersenne prime is a prime of the form 2^P-1. The first Mersenne primes are 3, 7, 31, 127 (corresponding to P = 2, 3, 5, 7). There are only 44 known Mersenne primes."

The next question you might ask is how can I participate in the search? Very easy, provided you have a computer with internet connection. Just download the software called PRIM95 from the GIMPS website and then run the software on your computer – can run it 24 hours a day if you don’t mind paying the electricity bill.

When you heard some music from your computer, you are probably hit a next known Mersenne Prime. Your name will be well remembered in history – discoverer of 45th Mersenne Prime. Apart from the fame, you will also receive award from the EFF, but you have to abide to the prize distribution rules set up by GIMPS. You will get US$50,000 based on the rule :-)

To be continued and see you next post:-)