[WhitneyLand]

But why?

One answer is a bit buried in a sub link in the article. On that page, you’ll find arguments for the following reasons: tradition, by products of the quest, collection of rare mathematical things, glory, pushing hardware performance, and contest rewards.

Personally I’m forced to admit I enjoy seeing them found while being unable to form any cogent justification.

http://primes.utm.edu/notes/faq/why.html

[vortico]

That's actually a fairly complete and accurate list of reasons for such a project. If I was interested, I'd do it for about half of those reasons, and others may prefer the other half.

[yarg]

They're a nice source of mathematically justifiable entropy.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

"Because it's there."

- George Mallory