Composite Mersenne Number/Examples/M229/Historical Note
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Historical Note on Mersenne Number $M_{229}$
Mersenne number $M_{229}$ was the largest of a set of $6$ demonstrated to be composite by Horace Scudder Uhler using a manual desk calculator in the $1940$s.
The next Mersenne prime after $M_{127}$, proved prime in $1896$ by François Édouard Anatole Lucas, does not occur until $M_{521}$.
As Uhler remarked, nobody had any idea that the next one would be so far away.
It is instructive to note that, in $2017$, it took a freely-available online factorization tool $4 \cdotp 8$ seconds to perform this exact calculation.
Sources
- 1986: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers ... (previous) ... (next): $2^{229} - 1$
- 1997: David Wells: Curious and Interesting Numbers (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): $2^{229} - 1$