One year, 41M digits: How Luke Durant found the largest known prime number

> The discovery was the result of almost exactly one year of work and about $2 million of Durant’s own money

9 years ago I asked how much a Mersenne prime is worth to us. I guess we have an answer now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10932238

This sounds like the (debunked) labor theory of value :p

Does it? "Things are worth what people are willing to spend to get them" is a truism in capitalism and in reality.

I might be getting wooshed here.

If I remember correctly, it is more an Austrian Economic thing than a capitalism thing, and the way I understood it, is that it is not the cost to create something that defines the value, but the price you can sell it at.

E.g, the value of the compute used was 2 million (because Durant bought it), but the prime is worthless, because he can't sell it, or use it for producing any services he can sell.

The point is, that just because something was expensive to make, doesn't mean it has a high value, and conversely (and most importantly) just because something was cheap to make, doesn't mean it isn't high value.

In life, I find a good way to value items is not what it cost to acquire it, but what it will cost to replace.