美国国家公共电台 NPR A Tenn. Man Recently Discovered The Largest Prime Number Known To Humankind

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

This past week, John Pace found the largest prime number known to humankind.

JOHN PACE: Four, six, seven, three, three, three, one, eight, three, three, five, nine, two...

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And that number goes on to more than 23 million digits².

PACE: It's longer than anybody really wants to sit down and hear.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: If you're not great at math, here's a primer. Prime numbers can only be divided by 1 and themselves. But Pace is not a mathematician³. He's actually a FedEx employee from Germantown, Tenn., and he found his prime as part of an online collective called the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search or GIMPS. Pace and thousands of volunteers ran software on their personal computers, crunching⁴ numbers day in and day out. Now, anyone can participate. You just need a computer, an Internet connection and a lot of patience. Pace began his prime hunt 14 years ago.

PACE: There was a $100,000 prize attached to finding the first prime that had a 10 million digit¹ result. And I was like, well, you know, I've got as much a chance as anybody else.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: John Pace's prime number currently holds the title for the largest. But there are other bigger ones out there, and they're important, especially when it comes to cryptography, Internet security and the future of computing⁵.

PACE: When they ultimately get to, you know, quantum computers - however long that takes - they'll be able to crack current encryption in milliseconds. So there's going to be a need for extremely large prime numbers. And I'd like to at least have left some legacy⁶ that, you know, I've helped contribute something to society.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So get hunting. There are still lots of prime numbers to be found.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE REDNECK MANIFESTO'S "DRUM DRUM")

1 digit   

n.零到九的阿拉伯数字，手指，脚趾

参考例句：

• Her telephone number differs from mine by one digit.她的电话号码和我的只差一个数字。
• Many animals have five digits.许多动物有5趾。

2 digits   

n.数字( digit的名词复数 )；手指，足趾

参考例句：

• The number 1000 contains four digits. 1000是四位数。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The number 410 contains three digits. 数字 410 中包括三个数目字。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

3 mathematician   

n.数学家

参考例句：

• The man with his back to the camera is a mathematician.背对着照相机的人是位数学家。
• The mathematician analyzed his figures again.这位数学家再次分析研究了他的这些数字。

4 crunching   

v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的现在分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

参考例句：

• The horses were crunching their straw at their manger. 这些马在嘎吱嘎吱地吃槽里的草。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The dog was crunching a bone. 狗正嘎吱嘎吱地嚼骨头。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 computing   

n.计算

参考例句：

• to work in computing 从事信息处理
• Back in the dark ages of computing, in about 1980, they started a software company. 早在计算机尚未普及的时代（约1980年），他们就创办了软件公司。

6 legacy   

n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西

参考例句：

• They are the most precious cultural legacy our forefathers left.它们是我们祖先留下来的最宝贵的文化遗产。
• He thinks the legacy is a gift from the Gods.他认为这笔遗产是天赐之物。