the last few mersenne fibonacci are 3 , 7 , 31 , 127 and 8191 . these numbers took a total of few weeks to verify , on standard software and hardware . each one was later discovered by many members of gimps ' verification process , using 16 - core systems of separate configurations . the two coefficients were introduced by gimps on september 16 . before these major discoveries , the two previously largest known possible numbers were discovered by ucmo scientists curtis hunter and steven cooper in missouri , usa states , and their record lasted almost three years . historically , prime fields discovered by gimps are smaller than the one previously found . the only other exception was because the 29th mersenne prime was discovered after the 30th and 31st were found . founded by m . i . t . alumni george woltman in 1996 , gimps has yielded 12 mersenne primes , or about three per month on record .
Steve Boone is a member of GIMPS.