May 2, 2025

Mersenne Primes

A prime number one less than a power of two

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There are currently only 51 known Mersenne Primes

2p−1

The exponent p for these known Mersenne primes are:​

2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 61, 89, 107, 127, 521, 607, 1279, 2203, 2281, 3217, 4253, 4423, 9689, 9941, 11213, 19937, 21701, 23209, 44497, 86243, 110503, 132049, 216091, 756839, 859433, 1257787, 1398269, 2976221, 3021377, 6972593, 13466917, 20996011, 24036583, 25964951, 30402457, 32582657, 37156667, 42643801, 43112609, 57885161, 74207281, 77232917, 82589933, and 136279841.

The last number in the list 136279841 was discovered in 2024 by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS). At 41,024,320 digits, it eclipses by more than 16 million digits the previous largest known prime number found by GIMPS nearly 6 years ago.

There is no code block for Mersenne Primes because they are incredibly hard to generate.