Mersenne prime Mersenne prime In mathematics, a Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. That is, it is a prime number of the form for some integer . They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French Minim friar, who studied them in the early 17th century. The exponents which give Mersenne primes are 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, ... and the resulting Mersenne primes are 3, 7, 31, 127, 8191, 131071, 524287, 2147483647, ... . If is a composite number then so is . ( is divisible by both and .)
Prime number corresponds to "congruence" in modular arithmetic: formula_22 and formula_121 are congruent (written formula_122 mod formula_1) when they have the same remainder after division by formula_1. However, in this system of numbers, division by all nonzero numbers is possible if and only if the modulus is prime. For instance, with the prime number formula_125 as modulus, division by formula_28 is possible: formula_127, because clearing denominators by multiplying both sides by formula_28 gives the valid formula formula_129. However, with the composite modulus formula_130, division by formula_28 is impossible. There is no valid solution to formula_132: clearing denominators by multiplying by formula_28 causes