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Ralph Ernest Powers

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Name
  
Ralph Powers


Ralph Ernest Powers (April 27, 1875 – January 31, 1952) was an American amateur mathematician who worked on prime numbers.

Contents

He is credited with discovering the Mersenne primes M89 and M107, in 1911 and 1914 respectively. In 1934 he verified that the Mersenne number M241 is composite.

Life

Details of his life are little-known, though he appears to have been an employee of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.

Soon after Powers announced the discovery of M107, the Frenchman E. Fauquembergue claimed that he had discovered it earlier, but many of Fauquembergue's other claims were later demonstrated as erroneous; thus, many prefer recognizing Powers as the discoverer, including the well-known Internet resource The Prime Pages.

Works

  • ‘The Tenth Perfect Number', American Mathematical Monthly, Vol. 18 (1911), pp. 195–7
  • ’On Mersenne's Numbers', Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society, Vol. 13 (1914), p. xxxix
  • 'A Mersenne Prime', Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 20, No. 10 (1914), p. 531
  • ’Certain composite Mersenne's numbers', Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society Vol. 15 (1916), p. xxii
  • (with D. H. Lehmer) 'On Factoring Large Numbers', Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 37. No. 10 (1931), pp. 770–76
  • ’Note on a Mersenne Number', Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 40, No. 12 (1934), p. 883

    • References

    Ralph Ernest Powers Wikipedia
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