We all know that A. Hurwitz discovered the Mersenne primes 2^4253 - 1 
and 2^4423 - 1 in 1961.

(i) Were these the first two 1000+ digit primes discovered?

(ii) If that is true, then is it generally accepted that the larger one 
(4423) was discovered first? (The story I heard was that left the 
computer running overnight and when he came to look at the results he 
read the printer output backwards, thus seeing 4423 before 4253.)

-- 
Tony
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