Ralph Ernest Powers (April 27, 1875 – January 31, 1952) was an American amateur mathematician who worked on prime numbers.
[3] Powers was born in Fountain, Colorado Territory.
Details of his life are little-known,[4] though he appears to have been an employee of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.
[5] 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 PrimePages.
After his own discoveries of Mersenne primes in 1911 and 1914, no Mersenne primes were discovered until Raphael M. Robinson used a computer to find the next two, on January 30, 1952, the night before Powers's death.