The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search just announced not one, but two new Mersenne primes! You might also recall the last time they announced a new prime, in September 2006, so these new primes were found almost exactly two years after the previous one. They haven’t actually announced what the primes are yet, but both of them are almost sure to be longer than ten million digits, long enough to claim the $100,000 prize offered by the Electronic Frontier Foundation! If they both end up being longer than ten million digits, I guess it sucks to be the guy whose computer discovered the second one (just two weeks after the first). You don’t get any money for discovering the second of anything.

Anyway, as soon as they announce the actual numbers, I’ll be sure to let you know!