Mersenne prime

High school (ages 12+)
Mathematics & Numbers

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Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/mersenne-prime

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. Who discovered Mersenne prime?The GIMPS project utilizes distributed computing to find new Mersenne primes
2. What is a Mersenne prime?A Mersenne prime is a prime number that can be written as 2^n – 1, where both the number itself and the exponent n are prime.
3. Why do the exponents for Mersenne primes have to be prime?If the exponent n is not prime, the number 2^n – 1 can always be split into smaller factors, so it cannot be prime.

Composite Number: A positive integer that has at least one divisor other than 1 and itself.
Euclid-Euler Theorem: A theorem establishing a one-to-one correspondence between even perfect numbers and Mersenne primes.
Distributed Computing: A computing paradigm that uses geographically dispersed computers to solve a common problem.
Bijection: A one-to-one correspondence between two sets, where each element in one set maps to exactly one element in the other set.