New World Record for the largest known prime number found

On January 3, 2018, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) announced they have found a new record for the worlds largest prime number. The number partially pictured below has 23,249,425 digits and took 84 hours to be fully verified by 4 independent machines running 4 independent programs.

Offical press release: https://www.mersenne.org/primes/press/M77232917.html

Printed on A4 paper at 80 numbers per line and 32 lines per side, you will fill 4,540 double-sided sheets of paper. It would, therefore, cost you £227 at 5p per page to print the entire number out!

Primes as large as these currently have no actual use, but before the internet came around nobody knew the use of 200-300 digit primes, now they are used every day in RSA encryption.

And so the hunt continues to find the next largest prime. Each discovery through GIMPS will be rewarded with a $3,000 reward prize. The next person who finds a 100 million digit prime number will be able to claim a prize of $150,000. For those participating in GIMPS project, happy hunting, and good luck finding the next prime!