> The discovery was the result of almost exactly one year of work and about $2 million of Durant’s own money. ... The prime number Durant discovered serves no real purpose for society.

Not sure how to react to this.

> The discovery was the result of almost exactly one year of work and about $2 million of Durant’s own money.

> Durant, who made his money off the boom, said he put his time and money into the project to show people that they aren’t helpless to technology giants and that we can figure out massive problems if we work together.

If I sold absolutely everything I owned, I would not even have close to half of what it Durant invested in his pet project. While I like his intended sentiment, I can't help but notice the irony.

> Durant, who made his money off the boom, said he put his time and money into the project to show people that they aren’t helpless to technology giants and that we can figure out massive problems if we work together.

I can appreciate the sentiment but

> The discovery was the result of almost exactly one year of work and about $2 million of Durant’s own money.

doesn't really show me much especially since

> The prime number Durant discovered serves no real purpose for society.

This sort of shows the opposite: if it takes $2M to discover something that doesn't have a real purpose, yeah I definitely feel a bit helpless against tech giants trying to do anything that is marginally useful.

Recent and related:

GIMPS Discovers Largest Known Prime Number: 2^136279841 – 1 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41904237 - Oct 2024 (11 comments)

New Mersenne Prime discovered (probably) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41858024 - Oct 2024 (120 comments)

We changed the url above from https://www.popsci.com/science/largest-prime-number/ to the article it points to.