←back to thread

New Mersenne Prime discovered (probably)

(www.mersenne.org)
359 points sdsykes | 1 comments | 16 Oct 24 11:51 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
potench ◴[19 Oct 24 14:46 UTC] No.41888058[source]▶
For others that, like me, do not know… a Mersenne prime is when the n is prime and the resulting M is also prime in the following equation.

M = 2ⁿ - 1

replies(1): >>41888297 #
1. loup-vaillant ◴[19 Oct 24 15:16 UTC] No.41888297[source]▶
I didn’t know, but according to Wikipedia we don’t need to require `n` to be prime, because when it isn’t, then neither is 2ⁿ-1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_prime

So I prefer to shorten the definition to "A prime of the form 2ⁿ-1". It’s bloody useful that n has to be prime though: makes searching that much faster.