A new prime number. I always thought that 1 and 7 and 11 were particularly cool numbers. You know, indivisible and all. The new prime is a 13 million digit number. Obviously, I can even give you the number itself except to say that the basic formula for a Prime number is P squared - 1. In this case P + 43,112,609. As I said, prime numbers are cool and all, but this new one, now THAT is a number.
Thank god there was a group of math-nerds (and I mean that in a very respectful and collegial way) sat around for the past x number of years waiting for a COMPUTER to come up with this digit. Well, not one computer, 75 of them actually. I would have been much more impressed if some Rain-Man type had just walked into their computer lab and said, "43,112,609 squared minus 1, yep, 43,112,609. That's a prime number, yep, a prime number....43, 112,609 squared minus 1."
Anywho...I guess everyone will have a new favorite number now. And, they'll likely be playing this at the lotto for the next couple of weeks! 4, 31, 12, 60 and 9. Sa-weet.
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