Washington, Jan 7 (PTI) An amateur scientist has discovered the largest known prime number, calculated by multiplying 77,232,917 twos, and then subtracting one. On December 26 last year, Jonathan Pace - a 51-year old electrical engineer in the US - stumbled on to the largest known prime number, having 23,249,425 digits. The new prime number, also known as M77232917, is nearly one million digits larger than the previous record prime number, in a special class of extremely rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes. Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. M77232917 is the 50th known Mersenne prime ever discovered, and are each increasingly difficult to find.

Source: India Today January 07, 2018 09:22 UTC