NumberTheory
IsMersenne
test whether a number is a Mersenne number
Calling Sequence
Parameters
Description
Examples
Compatibility
IsMersenne(n)
n
-
positive integer
The IsMersenne(n) command returns true if 2n−1 is prime, false if 2n−1 is not prime, and FAIL if the status is unknown.
Cases where the status is unknown will generally take an extremely long time to return an answer.
If 2n−1 is prime, then it is said to be a Mersenne prime.
There are currently 51 known Mersenne primes.
For every composite number m, 2m−1 is a not a prime.
with⁡NumberTheory:
IsMersenne⁡2
true
IsMersenne⁡336458
false
isprime⁡60298361
IsMersenne⁡60298361
FAIL
IsMersenne⁡60298362
The Tabulate command can be used to display Mersenne primes in a grid. The following table highlights any Mersenne primes with a pink background.
V≔r,c↦DocumentTools:−Tabulate⁡Matrix⁡r,c,i,j↦c⋅i−1+j,fillcolor=T,i,j↦`if`⁡IsMersenne⁡c⋅i−1+j,Pink,White:
V⁡10,10
Tabulate
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
Note that V(r, c) can be modified to show tables for various values of r and c.
The NumberTheory[IsMersenne] command was introduced in Maple 2016.
For more information on Maple 2016 changes, see Updates in Maple 2016.
See Also
NumberTheory[IthMersenne]
Download Help Document