American mathematician found the largest prime number

American mathematician named Curtis Cooper managed to get the largest prime number (divisible only by themselves and by one) known now, which record in the decimal system consists of 17,425,170 marks, according to the website GIMPS (distributed computing project).
 
The previous record consisted of 12,978,189 marks.

The resulting number - the so-called 48th Mersenne prime. On checking his belonging to the primes took 39 days of the computer in the University of Central Missouri, which operates and Cooper.

Independent audit was carried out three researchers on different systems, among whom was a 32-core server company "Novartis».

Recall that this is the third record Curtis Cooper. Prior to this, the largest prime numbers he found in 2005 and 2006, but two years later, in 2008, his record was broken by mathematicians from the University of California (Los Angeles), who opened a prime number that is written, as mentioned above, 12 978,189 marks.

Over the past opening GIMPS project has received $ 100 000 from the Fund EFF. These funds were divided into small prize for the promotion of these discoveries. As for Cooper, his new discovery claim in the amount of $ 3,000.