In the past fifty years a number of individuals wrote
software and developed databases to aid in the search for
Mersenne primes. In early 1996 George Woltman had the
idea of using the internet to coordinate this search and
developed GIMPS: the Great Internet
Mersenne Prime Search. He developed
a web site (above) which offers excellent free software,
allowing users on all platforms to join the search with
very little effort. GIMPS seeks new primes while also
seeking to factor the composite Mersennes and double (and
triple) check previous results.
In late 1997 Scott
Kurowski, founder of Entropia Inc., created PrimeNet allowing
GIMPS' programs to talk directly to a central database
over the Internet without human intervention. This
greatly expanded the number of people who could be
involved, and the rate at which the database could be
updated. Aaron Blosser is now the system
administrator, upgrading and maintaining PrimeNet as
needed--so is also credit with the find of the G14 prime.
Thanks to the work of Scott, George, and many others;
GIMPS includes over 100,000 people using over 200,000
computers! All of these folks deserve partial credit for
each of GIMPS' achievements!
GIMPS has found five Mersenne primes, and equally
importantly (for mathematicians) has shown large regions
to be void of Mersenne primes.
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