[math-fun] New Mersenne prime, 2^32,582,657 - 1

A new Mersenne prime has been found, with exponent 32,582,657. This is the 44th known MP. It was found by the same team at Central Missouri State that found #43. A few details are at mersenne.org. The last few discoveries have been more closely bunched together than usual, and the new MP is still a little short of 10 million digits. Since the GIMPS project doesn't check exponents sequentially, there could be another MP with a smaller exponent, although this is unlikely. The double-checking thread of the work (which double checks the Lucas residues of the Mersenne composites) is lagging well behind. The last time I looked, it was working on numbers between 15M and 20M. Rich