Ralph Ernest Powers

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

He is credited with discovering the Mersenne primes M89 and M107, in 1911 and 1914 respectively.[1][2] In 1934 he verified that the Mersenne number M241 is composite.[3]

  1. ^ R. E. Powers (1911). "The Tenth Perfect Number". American Mathematical Monthly. 18 (11): 195–197. doi:10.2307/2972574. JSTOR 2972574. The article is signed "DENVER, COLORADO, June, 1911"
  2. ^ [1][dead link] Proc. London Math. Soc. (1914) s2–13 (1): 1. Result presented at a meeting with London Mathematical Society on June 11, 1914. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  3. ^ R. E. Powers (1934). "Note on a Mersenne Number". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society. 40 (12): 883. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1934-05994-9.