# Thread: Kudos to Amateur Mathematician John Pace

1. ## Kudos to Amateur Mathematician John Pace

In case you missed it, a Fed-Ex employee from Tennessee has discovered the largest-known prime number; it has more than 23 million digits. Hmmm -- maybe I should fired up some of my old laptops and join the hunt …

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/07/57630...ber-discovered

2. I did not quite understand the following statement in the article:

"Pace's prime holds the title for the largest, but there are other bigger ones out there. "

How come there are "bigger" primes than the "largest"?

3. Originally Posted by Subhotosh Khan
I did not quite understand the following statement in the article:

"Pace's prime holds the title for the largest, but there are other bigger ones out there. "

How come there are "bigger" primes than the "largest"?
"Pace's prime holds the title for the largest [known prime], but there are other [not yet known] bigger ones out there."

English, unlike math, allows for omission of words that were used earlier. But it still would have been good reporting to include the omitted words.

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