There is a new largest known prime number. It is the 40th Mersenne prime to be found, which are of the form 2^n -1, with n prime. The largest known primes are usually of this form. In this case it is 2^20996011 - 1.
Update: As of September 4, 2006, the 44th Mersenne prime was found, 232,582,657-1.
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What about 2^24036583-1?
Posted by: stephane Collinge | January 19, 2005 at 07:44 PM