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A 36-year-old researcher with roots in Alabama, Luke Durant, recently stunned the math world by discovering the largest known prime number.
This massive number, M136279841, stretches across an astonishing 41 million digits, surpassing the previous record by a whopping 16 million digits.
Durant, who once studied at the Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile, was part of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) project that led to this breakthrough.
How Did He Do It? GPUs Power Prime Hunting
Durant used the power of graphics processing units (GPUs) to identify this record-breaking prime number.
Typically known for boosting gaming and AI technology, GPUs have found a new use in advanced math, showing that they’re suited for scientific discoveries beyond machine learning.
Durant shared with New Scientist that he joined GIMPS partly to push the boundaries of traditional computing and spotlight GPUs’ potential in areas like math research.