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In mathematics, a Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. That is, it is a prime number of the form M n = 2 n − 1 for some integer n. They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French Minim friar, who studied them in the early 17th century. If n is a composite number then so is 2 n − 1.
Mersenne primes, named after the friar Marin Mersenne, are prime numbers that can be expressed as 2 p − 1 for some positive integer p. For example, 3 is a Mersenne prime as it is a prime number and is expressible as 2 2 − 1. [1] [2] The numbers p corresponding to Mersenne primes must themselves be prime, although the vast majority of primes ...
The Mersenne number M 3 = 2 3 −1 = 7 is prime. The Lucas–Lehmer test verifies this as follows. Initially s is set to 4 and then is updated 3−2 = 1 time: s ← ((4 × 4) − 2) mod 7 = 0. Since the final value of s is 0, the conclusion is that M 3 is prime. On the other hand, M 11 = 2047 = 23 × 89 is not prime
A Mersenne prime is a prime number of the form M p = 2 p − 1, one less than a power of two. For a number of this form to be prime, p itself must also be prime, but not all primes give rise to Mersenne primes in this way. For instance, 2 3 − 1 = 7 is a Mersenne prime, but 2 11 − 1 = 2047 = 23 × 89 is not.
Mersenne primes are a rare kind of number, making Durant’s finding of the 52nd known Mersenne prime even more impressive. A number is only considered a Mersenne prime if it can be written in the ...
The following table lists the progression of the largest known prime number in ascending order. [3] Here M p = 2 p − 1 is the Mersenne number with exponent p, where p is a prime number. The longest record-holder known was M 19 = 524,287, which was the largest known prime for 144 years. No records are known prior to 1456. [citation needed]
The original, called Mersenne's conjecture, was a statement by Marin Mersenne in his Cogitata Physico-Mathematica (1644; see e.g. Dickson 1919) that the numbers were prime for n = 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 67, 127 and 257, and were composite for all other positive integers n ≤ 257.
For some forms of numbers, it is possible to find 'short-cuts' to a primality proof. This is the case for the Mersenne numbers. In fact, due to their special structure, which allows for easier verification of primality, the six largest known prime numbers are all Mersenne numbers. [15]