On 24th January 2025 my PC discovered a prime number large enough to be listed on PrimePages. The prime number is 3045 · 22129650 + 1, and you can see more details on this PrimePages link.
The number has 641093 digits, so it’s not a megaprime (at least one million decimal digits). When it was added, it had an entrance rank of 4916. So it was big enough to be a Top 5000 prime number. It immediately got pushed out of the top 5000.
My PC found the prime number while crunching for PrimeGrid, a BOINC project. The work unit that contained the prime was one of the work units that remained unfinished after the Penguin Awareness Day Challenge ended the day before. It was a good decision to keep crunching the unfinished work units even after the challenge ended.
Background Story
I learned about BOINC and volunteer distributed computing in 2020. In February 2020 I started to use BOINC on my gaming laptop. Later, I also learned about GIMPS (Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search). In May 2020 I decided to buy a gaming PC and Raspberry Pi to run these volunteer computing projects. I started to run GIMPS only after my gaming PC arrived.
On my gaming PC I usually rotate between BOINC projects and GIMPS. My PC usually runs 24/7, but the summers in Florida can be brutal.
My Raspberry Pi is always running 24/7 and it’s usually doing Yoyo@home and Science United tasks. My first Raspberry Pi is not working anymore. I had to change the fan once on my second Raspberry fan. I had to do the same with my first Raspberry before it died. Let’s hope that the 2nd Raspberry Pi has a longer life 🙂
So it took almost 5 years until I discovered a very large prime number. Of course, I don’t always run GIMPS , PrimeGrid or SRBase taks (prime finding projects). I also like to run other types of math projects or projects related to astronomy, biology or medical sciences. I crunch from time to time tasks from most projects listed on this page.
Running tasks for BOINC or GIMPS is a pretty passive activity. The computers do all the work. Nonetheless, I invested resources to buy, replace or maintain my computers. I also suffered the additional heat compounded on the brutal Florida heat. My volunteer computing saga involved some real dedication 🙂
Random coincidence: I discovered the prime number on 24th January, which is the date when the Principality of Wallachia united with Principality of Moldavia to form Romania (also known as the Little Union). However, the Danubian principalities were still using the Julian calendar in 1859, like all the orthodox countries. Romania switched to the Gregorian calendar in 1919 (Same as Yugoslavia). So the Little Union was technically on 5th February, but it’s still celebrated on 24th January (however today it’s overshadowed by the Great Union, which is celebrated on December 1) . Nonetheless, as a Romanian, this is a nice coincidence.