The Largest Known Primes -- A Summary

A quick summary of the 5000 largest known primes database

A historic Prime Page resource since 1994!
Last modified: 03:38:51 March 19 2024 UTC

Contents:

  1. Introduction (What are primes? Who cares?)
  2. The Top Ten Record Primes:
        largest, twin, Mersenne, primorial & factorial, and Sophie Germain
  3. The Complete List of the Largest Known Primes
  4. Other Sources of Prime Information
  5. External: Euclid's Proof of the Infinitude of Primes

Note: The site The Top Twenty is a greatly expanded version of this information. This page summarizes the information on the list of 5000 Largest Known Primes (updated hourly).  The complete list of is available in several forms.

A big 2 is a big prime!

[up]   1. Introduction

An integer greater than one is called a prime number if its only positive divisors (factors) are one and itself.  For example, the prime divisors of 10 are 2 and 5; and the first six primes are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11 and 13.  (The first 10,000, and other lists are available).  The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic shows that the primes are the building blocks of the positive integers: every positive integer is a product of prime numbers in one and only one way, except for the order of the factors. (This is the key to their importance: the prime factors of an integer determines its properties.)

The ancient Greeks proved (ca 300 BC) that there were infinitely many primes and that they were irregularly spaced (there can be arbitrarily large gaps between successive primes).  On the other hand, in the nineteenth century it was shown that the number of primes less than or equal to n approaches n/(ln n) (as n gets very large); so a rough estimate for the nth prime is n ln n (see the document "How many primes are there?")

The Sieve of Eratosthenes is still the most efficient way of finding all very small primes (e.g., those less than 1,000,000).  However, most of the largest primes are found using special cases of Lagrange's Theorem from group theory.  See the separate documents on proving primality for more information.

In 1984 Samuel Yates defined a titanic prime to be any prime with at least 1,000 digits [Yates84, Yates85].  When he introduced this term there were only 110 such primes known; now there are over 1000 times that many!  And as computers and cryptology continually give new emphasis to search for ever larger primes, this number will continue to grow.

If you want to understand a building, how it will react to weather or fire, you first need to know what it is made of. The same is true for the integers--most of their properties can be traced back to what they are made of: their prime factors. For example, in Euclid's Geometry (over 2,000 years ago), Euclid studied even perfect numbers and traced them back to what we now call Mersenne primes.

"The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic.  It has engaged the industry and wisdom of ancient and modern geometers to such an extent that it would be superfluous to discuss the problem at length...  Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated." (Carl Friedrich Gauss, Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, 1801)

See the FAQ for more information on why we collect these large primes!

[up]  2. The "Top Ten" Record Primes

A. The Ten Largest Known Primes

The largest known prime has almost always been a Mersenne prime.  Why Mersennes?  Because the way the largest numbers N are proven prime is based on the factorizations of either N+1 or N-1. For Mersennes the factorization of N+1 is as trivial as possible--a power of two!

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) was launched by George Woltman in early 1996, and has had a virtual lock on the largest known prime since then.  This is because its excellent free software is easy to install and maintain, requiring little of the user other than watch and see if they find the next big one and maybe win some EFF prize money!

Any record in this list of the top ten is a testament to the incredible amount of work put in by the programmers, project directors (GIMPS, Seventeen or Bust, Generalized Fermat Search...), and the tens of thousands of enthusiasts!

rank prime digits who when comment
1 282589933-1 24862048 G16 2018 Mersenne 51??
2 277232917-1 23249425 G15 2018 Mersenne 50??
3 274207281-1 22338618 G14 2016 Mersenne 49??
4 257885161-1 17425170 G13 2013 Mersenne 48
5 243112609-1 12978189 G10 2008 Mersenne 47
6 242643801-1 12837064 G12 2009 Mersenne 46
7 5166932097152-5166931048576+1 11981518 L4561 2023 Generalized unique
8 4658592097152-4658591048576+1 11887192 L4561 2023 Generalized unique
9 237156667-1 11185272 G11 2008 Mersenne 45
10 232582657-1 9808358 G9 2006 Mersenne 44
      

Click here to see the one hundred largest known primes. You might also be interested in seeing the graph of the size of record primes by year: throughout history or just in the last decade.

B. The Ten Largest Known Twin Primes
See also the page: The top 20: twin primes,
and the glossary entry: twin primes.

Twin primes are primes of the form p and p+2, i.e., they differ by two.  It is conjectured, but not yet proven, that there are infinitely many twin primes (the same is true for all of the following forms of primes).  Because discovering a twin prime actually involves finding two primes, the largest known twin primes are substantially smaller than the largest known primes of most other forms.

rank prime digits who when comment
1 2996863034895·21290000-1 388342 L2035 2016 Twin (p)
2 3756801695685·2666669-1 200700 L1921 2011 Twin (p)
3 65516468355·2333333-1 100355 L923 2009 Twin (p)
4 160204065·2262148-1 78923 L5115 2021 Twin (p)
5 18936119858192-18936119854096-1 76000 A13 2024 Twin (p)
6 15891732708192-15891732704096-1 75376 A22 2024 Twin (p)
7 9960942348192-9960942344096-1 73715 A18 2024 Twin (p)
8 8957215318192-8957215314096-1 73337 A7 2024 Twin (p)
9 7955076968192-7955076964096-1 72915 A5 2024 Twin (p)
10 6915957608192-6915957604096-1 72417 A13 2024 Twin (p)
      

Click here to see all of the twin primes on the list of the Largest Known Primes.

Note: The idea of prime twins can be generalized to prime triplets, quadruplets; and more generally, prime k-tuplets.  Tony Forbes keeps a page listing these records.

C. The Ten Largest Known Mersenne Primes

Mersenne primes are primes of the form 2p-1.  These are the easiest type of number to check for primality on a binary computer so they usually are also the largest primes known.  GIMPS is steadily finding these behemoths!

rank prime digits who when comment
1 282589933-1 24862048 G16 2018 Mersenne 51??
2 277232917-1 23249425 G15 2018 Mersenne 50??
3 274207281-1 22338618 G14 2016 Mersenne 49??
4 257885161-1 17425170 G13 2013 Mersenne 48
5 243112609-1 12978189 G10 2008 Mersenne 47
6 242643801-1 12837064 G12 2009 Mersenne 46
7 237156667-1 11185272 G11 2008 Mersenne 45
8 232582657-1 9808358 G9 2006 Mersenne 44
9 230402457-1 9152052 G9 2005 Mersenne 43
10 225964951-1 7816230 G8 2005 Mersenne 42
      

See our page on Mersenne numbers for more information including a complete table of the known Mersennes.  You can also help fill in the gap by joining the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search.

D. The Ten Largest Known Factorial/Primorial Primes
See also the Top20: primorial and factorial primes,
and the glossary entries: primorial, factorial.

Euclid's proof that there are infinitely many primes uses numbers of the form n#+1.   Kummer's proof uses those of the form n#-1.  Sometimes students look at these proofs and assume the numbers n#+/-1 are always prime, but that is not so.  When numbers of the form n#+/-1 are prime they are called primorial primes.  Similarly numbers of the form n!+/-1 are called factorial primes.  The current record holders and their discoverers are:

Primorial
rank prime digits who when comment
1 3267113#-1 1418398 p301 2021 Primorial
2 1098133#-1 476311 p346 2012 Primorial
3 843301#-1 365851 p302 2010 Primorial
4 392113#+1 169966 p16 2001 Primorial
5 366439#+1 158936 p16 2001 Primorial
6 145823#+1 63142 p21 2000 Primorial
7 42209#+1 18241 p8 1999 Primorial
8 24029#+1 10387 C 1993 Primorial
9 23801#+1 10273 C 1993 Primorial
10 18523#+1 8002 D 1990 Primorial
      
Factorial
rank prime digits who when comment
1 422429!+1 2193027 p425 2022 Factorial
2 308084!+1 1557176 p425 2022 Factorial
3 288465!+1 1449771 p3 2022 Factorial
4 208003!-1 1015843 p394 2016 Factorial
5 150209!+1 712355 p3 2011 Factorial
6 147855!-1 700177 p362 2013 Factorial
7 110059!+1 507082 p312 2011 Factorial
8 103040!-1 471794 p301 2010 Factorial
9 94550!-1 429390 p290 2010 Factorial
10 34790!-1 142891 p85 2002 Factorial
      

Click here to see all of the known primorial, factorial and multifactorial primes on the list of the largest known primes.

E. The Ten Largest Known Sophie Germain Primes
See also the page: The top 20: Sophie Germain,
and the glossary entry: Sophie Germain Prime.

A Sophie Germain prime is an odd prime p for which 2p+1 is also prime.  These were named after Sophie Germain when she proved that the first case of Fermat's Last Theorem (xn+yn=zn has no solutions in non-zero integers for n>2) for exponents divisible by such primes.  Fermat's Last theorem has now been proved completely by Andrew Wiles.

rank prime digits who when comment
1 2618163402417·21290000-1 388342 L927 2016 Sophie Germain (p)
2 18543637900515·2666667-1 200701 L2429 2012 Sophie Germain (p)
3 22942396995·2265776-1 80017 L3494 2023 Sophie Germain (p)
4 183027·2265440-1 79911 L983 2010 Sophie Germain (p)
5 648621027630345·2253824-1 76424 x24 2009 Sophie Germain (p)
6 620366307356565·2253824-1 76424 x24 2009 Sophie Germain (p)
7 10957126745325·2222333-1 66942 L5843 2023 Sophie Germain (p)
8 20690306380455·2222332-1 66942 L5843 2023 Sophie Germain (p)
9 10030004436315·2222333-1 66942 L5843 2023 Sophie Germain (p)
10 8964472847055·2222333-1 66942 L5843 2023 Sophie Germain (p)
      

Click here to see all of the Sophie Germain primes on the list of Largest Known Primes.

[up]   3. Other Sources of Large Primes

Because of the lag time between writing and printing, books can never keep up with the current prime records (that is why this page exists!)  However books can provide the mathematical theory behind these records much better than a limited series of web pages can.  Recently there have been quite a number of excellent books published on primes and primality proving.  Here are some of my favorite:

See also [Bressoud89] and [Cohen93] on the page of partially annotated prime references.  Also of interest is the Cunningham Project, an effort to factor the numbers in the title of the following book.

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