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Biography
Marin Mersennus or le Pre Mersenne (8 September 1588 1 September
1648) was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music
theorist, often referred to as the "father of acoustics". Mersenne, an ordained
priest, had many contacts in the scientific world and has been called "the
center of the world of science and mathematics during the first half of the
1600s."
Marin Mersenne was born into a working class family in the small town of
Oiz in the province of Maine on 8 September 1588 and was baptised on the
same day. From an early age he showed signs of devotion and eagerness to
study. So, despite their financial situation, Marin's parents sent him to the
Collge du Mans where he took grammar classes. Later, at the age of
sixteen, Mersenne asked to go to the newly established Jesuit School in La
Flche which had been set up as a model school for the benefit of all children
regardless of their parents' financial situation. It turns out that Descartes, who
was eight years younger than Mersenne, was enrolled at the same school
although they are not thought to have become friends until much later.

Mersenne prime numbers

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 that can be written in the form Mn
= 2n 1 for some integer n. They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French
Minim friar, who studied them in the early 17th century. The first four
Mersenne primes (sequence A000668 in OEIS) are 3, 7, 31, and 127If n is a
composite number then so is 2n 1. (2ab 1 is divisible by both 2a 1 and
2b 1.)
The definition is therefore unchanged when written Mp = 2p 1 where p is
assumed prime.More generally, numbers of the form Mn = 2n 1 without the
primality requirement are called Mersenne numbers. Mersenne numbers are
sometimes defined to have the additional requirement that n be prime,
equivalently that they be pernicious Mersenne numbers, namely those
pernicious numbers whose binary representation contains no zeros. The
smallest composite pernicious Mersenne number is 211 1 = 2047 = 23
89.Mersenne primes Mp are also noteworthy due to their connection to
perfect numbers.As of January 2016, 49 Mersenne primes are known. The
largest known prime number 274,207,281 1 is a Mersenne prime.