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10-31-1903

Frank N. Cole, at a New York meeting of the American Mathematical Society, presented a paper "On the factoring of large numbers." He spoke not a word, but carefully raised 2 to the 67th power, then subtracted one. Moving over, he computed 193,707,721 times 761,838,257,287. The calculations agreed, showing that this number is not a Mersenne prime. In 1911, E. T. Bell asked Cole how long it had taken him to find this factorization. He replied, "Three years of Sundays."

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Frank Cole
Mersenne Primes
Date: 
Saturday, October 31, 1903