THE search for the world's largest prime number might lead to a jail term. A Colorado man is now under investigation for allegedly hijacking a phone company's computers to enlist their aid in finding a record-breaking prime.
Prime numbersthose that can't be divided evenly by any whole number other than 1 and themselvesare the atoms of the mathematical world. Just as all molecules are made up of atoms, all numbers are the product of prime numbers.
Though there are an infinite number of primes, big ones are tough to find. So for many years, mathematicians have been vying with each other to find larger and larger prime numbers.
Since November 1996, the world records has been held by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS)a ragtag bunch of number-lovers who have devoted their computers' spare time to looking for ever larger primes. Their combined computing power is 200 gigaflopsroughly equivalent ...
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