Largest Prime Number

This is a little insight on the prime numbers that mathematicians found.
On August 23rd, a UCLA computer in the GIMPS PrimeNet network discovered the 45th known Mersenne prime, 243,112,609-1, a mammoth 12,978,189 digit number! The prime number qualifies for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's $100,000 award for discovery of the first 10 million digit prime number.

On September 6th, the 46th known Mersenne prime, 237,156,667-1, a 11,185,272 digit number was found by Hans-Michael Elvenich in Langenfeld near Cologne, Germany! This was the first Mersenne prime to be discovered out of order since Colquitt and Welsh discovered 2110,503-1 in 1988.
The nearly decade long quest for the EFF award came down to a close race to the finish - with just two weeks separating the discovery of the two primes.

In recognition of the individual discoverers, the GIMPS project leaders, and every GIMPS participant's contributions, credit for the two primes goes to "Edson Smith, George Woltman, Scott Kurowski, et al.", and "Hans-Michael Elvenich, George Woltman, Scott Kurowski, et al.".

Edson Smith has worked in the IT industry for 27 years and the last 10 years as the Computing Manager for the UCLA Mathematics Department. Last Fall he replaced the Lab's screen savers with prime95 - a perfect fit for the Mathematics Department. UCLA has a rich history in the discovery of Mersenne primes. Dr. Raphael Robinson found five Mersenne primes at UCLA in 1952 and Alex Hurwitz found two more in 1961.

Hans-Michael Elvenich is a 44 year old Electrical Engineer working for Lanxess, a chemical company. He is a prime number enthusiast and is the owner and operator of www.primzahlen.de. In German, prime numbers are called "Primzahlen".
Both primes were first verified by Tom Duell (Burlington, MA, USA) and Rob Giltrap (Wellington, New ZealandThe first prime verification took 13 days, the second prime took 5 days.
Perfectly Scientific, Dr. Crandall's company which developed the FFT algorithm used by GIMPS, will make posters you can order containing all 12.9 and 11.1 million digits. You'll need a good magnifying glass to read the tiny, tiny print!