A Former ASMS Student Discovers A New Prime Numbe

October 29, 2024 - TUSCALOOSA - Luke Durant, who is now thirty-six years of age, attended the Alabama School of Math and Science when he was a young student. And while he has been employed as an engineer by a software company known as NVIDIA, he has not forgotten his mathematical background. With Durant using his home-built, cloud-computing-based, $2 million dollar GPU-boosted supercomputer, on October 11th, 2024, he discovered the largest known prime number, ever. Known as M136279841, Durant's prime number has 41 million digits.

Prime numbers are the numbers one learns in elementary school as being a number that can be divided by only itself and the number "1". With the number "2" being the only even prime and the rest being odd numbers such as 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13. The Ancient Greek mathematician, Euclid, posited that there are an infinite number of primes. Which may seem counterintuitive, but as of yet, Euclid's theory has not been disproven. And mathematicians have been on a quest ever since to find all of these infinite prime numbers that exist in the outer realms of the mathematical universe.

Luke Durant's discovery of M136279841, breaks the six-year drought in the discovery of new prime numbers. And while Luke Durant currently resides in San Jose, California, he has not forgotten his alma mater. With ASMS having a proven 35-year history of preparing motivated high schoolers for high-level careers in science, medicine, engineering, technology, computer science, research, and mathematics. Luke Durant plans on donating his award money of $3,000 dollars to the Alabama School of Math and mathematics.

Luke Durant plans on donating his award money of $3,000 dollars to the Alabama School of Math and Sciences in Mobile.

Luisa Reyes is an attorney in Tuscaloosa with a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Judson, a master's degree in library science, and a law degree from Samford's Cumberland School of Law. She is also a piano instructor and vocalist.