Christy Hovanetz, Ph.D., is a Senior Policy Fellow for ExcelinEd focusing on school accountability and math policies.
A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that’s divisible only by 1 and itself.
While 17 is my favorite prime number, there are an infinite number of primes—although they become less frequent the higher you count.
Prime numbers were first studied by ancient Greek mathematicians. Euclid of Alexandria, later known as the father of geometry, provided most of the fundamental knowledge we have about prime numbers.
The largest prime number found so far has 24,862,048 digits (282589933-1). It was discovered on December 7, 2018, via a coordinated online effort-the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Number Search-using a computer volunteered by Patrick Laroche of Ocala, Florida.
Primes have very special properties for factorization. That means it is relatively easy to find larger prime numbers but it’s much harder to factor large numbers back into primes. Mathematicians have been working at this problem for hundreds of years, yet there is still no way to efficiently factor large numbers.
Why? Because prime numbers protect us from cybercrime, thereby keeping our money and private information safe.
The most commonly used application of prime numbers in computing is the RSA encryption system, created in 1978 by Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard Adleman and named “RSA” from the initials of their last names. Modern encryption algorithms exploit the fact we can easily take two large primes and multiply them together to get a new, enormous number—but no computer can take that enormous number and quickly figure out which two primes went into making it.
Does that seem surprising? In fact, it’s true. A modern supercomputer could work on a 256-bit factorization problem for longer than the current age of the universe and still not get the answer!
But here at ExcelinEd, we do have answers to ensure all students are primed to succeed in math, which is a key predictor of postsecondary success! Check out our comprehensive K-8 math model policy and the math policy’s fundamental principles. Both are based on the findings of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel to guide and support state leaders implementing and/or strengthening math policy in their K-12 systems.
Do you like a challenge? Join the search for a 100-million-digit prime number with the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Number Search to make math history and win $150,000. All you need is a personal computer, patience and luck!
