“And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.”

A new Prime Number, and now the largest of all has been discovered.  And, it’s not just a little larger (or in this case longer) than the past number, it is nearly five million digits longer than what was the previous longest prime.  Prime numbers are in the simplest forms, numbers that can be only be divided by the numeral 1 and itself.  The prime number thread we learned in school looked like this:  1, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13,…  The equation for getting to prime is:  2 (to an nth power) – 1.  The number (or integer) we make n plugs into the equation to see if a prime number results.  What a computer at the University of Central Missouri found is that if you take 2 to the 74,207,281st power and subtract 1 it is a prime number, the longest prime number ever.  And the number has a name. It is, “PC No. 5 Room 143”.  And what did this PC get for it’s 31 days of continuous computation?  Well, it got a world-record and is being retired to become a showpiece.  Hal would be proud.

What do prime numbers mean to any of us?  Well, I read that they estimate over 100 billion people have lived (and died) on the earth.  On God’s equation, each of those are His “primes”.  Each were unique.  And, so God considers us His uniquely, each to go about our lives in a unique and significant way of living and impacting others.  It can sometimes feel like we are getting lost among all of the others around us and that we don’t get recognized for how hard we are trying.  But, like the new prime number that is discovered, we are each here, and how we live and work for Him, as his “prime example” matters.

Reference:  Luke 12:7 (New Living Translation)