Resolution criteria
A new Mersenne prime is discovered in 2026 if the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) discovers a new Mersenne prime number and the discovery is officially announced by December 31, 2026. The discovery date is when the prime is first verified as prime, not when it is announced. Resolution will be confirmed via the official GIMPS website at https://www.mersenne.org/primes/ or official GIMPS press releases.
Background
The most recent Mersenne prime, 2^136279841-1, was discovered on October 21, 2024, with 41,024,320 digits, eclipsing the previous record by more than 16 million digits. This is only the 52nd known Mersenne prime ever discovered. GIMPS has historically discovered a new Mersenne prime every 1 to 2 years on average, though the most recent discovery took nearly six years to find. GIMPS has discovered the last 18 Mersenne primes since its founding in 1996.
Considerations
It is unknown whether there are infinitely many Mersenne primes, though it has been conjectured that there are, but they are too scarce for current techniques to detect. The discovery of the 52nd Mersenne prime required about one year and US$2 million in computing resources, representing a significant increase in computational difficulty compared to previous discoveries. Additionally, as of February 2026, not all exponents between the 50th and 52nd Mersenne primes have been fully verified, so there may be undiscovered Mersenne primes smaller than the current record.
This description was generated by AI.
1,000