HackingTheUniverse

Marin Mersenne was born in France in 1588 and studied theology, philosophy, mathematics and music. He is known for some of the first major contributions to acoustics and for his work compiling a list of large prime numbers by using the form 2^p – 1 where p is a known prime number. [raise 2 to the p power then subtract 1 and test the result for being a prime number] This technique does not always yield prime numbers, but through testing, makes it possible to verify some very large prime numbers which are now known as “Mersenne primes”.

PRECURSOR:
-0325 – Euclid
-0287 – Archimedes

CONCURRENT:
1564 – Galileo
1596 – Descartes
1601 – Fermat
1608 – Torricelli
1629 – Huygens
1634 – Pascal

SUBSEQUENT:
1707 – Euler
1777 – Gauss
1826 – Riemann