Mersenne numbers are integers of the form 2n - 1. The aim is to find which of them are prime. They are linked to perfect numbers—that is, integers equal to the sum of their proper divisors. We do not know whether there are infinitely many or only finitely many—and, if so, which is the largest. To date, just fifty-two are known! The latest, and the largest known, was found in October 2024 and corresponds to n = 136,279,841; its decimal representation requires 41,024,320 digits, enough to fill just over 10,000 pages of your magazine, Tangente!
The eighteen most recently discovered, dating back to 1996, were all found through GIMPS (Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search). Founded by American computer scientist George Woltman, this distributed computing project brings together volunteers—currently around 800 each day and 290,000 since its launch—who use dedicated software to search for Mersenne primes.
