44th Mersenne Prime Number Confirmed

Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) is a distributed computing project. It is like the SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project that uses Internet-connected computers in search of extra-terrestrials, but GIMPS does the same for the discovery of new prime numbers that are divisible only by the number 1 and itself.

Less than a year after the 43rd Mersenne prime was reported (See our past posting), GIMPS project has discovered the 44th known Mersenne prime. The candidate prime was flagged prime by Dr. Curtis Cooper and Dr. Steven Boone who are also the discoverers of the 43rd known Mersenne prime. The GIMPS website states that this proves lightning can strike twice!

Mersenne numbers are numbers of the form M_n = 2ⁿ - 1, giving the first few as 1, 3, 7, 15, 31, 63, 127, .... The new Mersenne prime is 2^32,582,657 - 1. It has a whopping total of 9,808,358 digits. It is therefore not only the largest known Mersenne prime, but also the largest known prime of any kind. It was the 10th prime number discovered by GIMPS by running a program Prime95 that can be freely downloaded from GIMPS's website. For Additional details see Mersenne.org press release.

Maplesoft's Engineering Toolkits

Maplesoft has introduced new Toolkits for Engineering design calculations, modeling and simulation. These are suites of analytical design tools based on powerful tools of Maple and offer a combination of powerful mathematical solvers with domain- and application- specific functions. The components in each of these Toolkits have been carefully selected and validated by domain experts to ensure that the best solutions for engineering design tasks are quickly arrived at without error. Here are those 4 toolkits:

Mechanical System Modeling and Simulation Toolkit
Allows rapid development of mathematical models of mechanical systems and exporting them to Simulink for virtual prototyping and real-time simulation.

Vehicle Modeling and Simulation Toolkit
Allows rapid development of mathematical models of vehicle components and exporting them to Simulink for virtual prototyping and real-time simulation.

Simulink Users’ Toolkit
Offers a comprehensive range of Maple-powered analysis and documentation tools that accelerates model development for Simulink. It's ideal for developing optimized high-fidelity models of dynamic systems for real-time applications.

MATLAB Users’ Toolkit
Offers a comprehensive range of Maple-powered analysis and documentation tools that accelerates analysis development for MATLAB.

MathOnline

Currently, if you type "online math tests" in Google, the result that appears at No.1 rank among 53 million other similar ones is a site developed by Prof. Elias Saab of the University of Missouri-Columbia. The website helps students prepare for math tests and competitions and is gaining popularity among students nationwide.

The Web site -- MathOnline ( http://mathonline.missouri.edu/) -- provides free tests students can use for practice or self-evaluation and that school officials can use to assess their students' readiness in mathematics. MathOnline provides interactive tests in high school geometry, algebra and trigonometry, as well as for placement in first-year calculus and college algebra.

Users can also select options to personalize tests by choosing the number of problems (from 5 to 75, in denominations of 5) and whether the questions are multiple choice or single-answer blanks. After students finish the tests, the site provides the correct answers with a detailed explanation of each problem. The site also has a database of problems large enough that students can take similar tests several times without repeating questions.