1267577

1267577 is a large prime number. It was discovered on November 24, 2009, by the distributed computing project GIMPS (Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search). This prime number is of the form 2^p - 1, where p is also a prime number. Specifically, 1267577 is equal to 2^40961 - 1. It is the 47th known Mersenne prime.

The discovery of Mersenne primes is a significant area of research in number theory. Mersenne primes are related to perfect numbers, which are numbers that are equal to the sum of their proper divisors. Euclid proved that if 2^p - 1 is a prime number, then 2^(p-1) * (2^p - 1) is a perfect number.

The GIMPS project continues to search for larger Mersenne primes using the computational power of volunteers worldwide. Discovering new Mersenne primes can also lead to the discovery of new perfect numbers, which have some interesting mathematical properties. The search for these large primes is also used to test the reliability of computer hardware.