The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 2^82,589,933 - 1, having 24,862,048 digits. A computer volunteered by Patrick Laroche from Ocala, Florida, made the find on December 7, 2018. The new prime number, also known as M82589933, is calculated by multiplying together 82,589,933 twos and then subtracting one. It is more than one and a half million digits larger than the previous record prime number.
GIMPS has been on amazing lucky streak finding triple the expected number of new Mersenne primes -- a dozen in the last fifteen years. This prime was even luckier for Patrick Laroche, striking pay dirt on just his fourth try. For years, Patrick had used GIMPS software as a free "stress test" for his computer builds. Less than four months ago he started prime hunting on his media server to give back to the project. By way of comparison, some GIMPS participants have searched for more than 20 years with tens of thousands of attempts but no success. This proves that, with luck, anyone can find the next new Mersenne prime.
The new prime is only the 51st known Mersenne prime ever discovered. Mersenne primes were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. GIMPS, founded in 1996, has discovered the last 17 Mersenne primes. Volunteers download a free program to search for these primes, with a cash award offered to anyone lucky enough to find a new prime. Prof. Chris Caldwell maintains an authoritative web site on the largest known primes, and has an excellent history of Mersenne primes.
Patrick is one of thousands of volunteers using free GIMPS software available at http://www.mersenne.org/download/. Credit for this prime goes not only to Patrick Laroche for running the Prime95 software, Woltman for writing the software, Blosser for keeping the Primenet server running smoothly, and the thousands of GIMPS volunteers that sifted through millions of non-prime candidates. In recognition of all the above people, official credit for this discovery goes to "P. Laroche, G. Woltman, A. Blosser, et al."
https://www.mersenne.org/