Prime numbers have been a point of interest for mathematicians for hundreds of years. These types of numbers appear in a wide variety of places, everywhere from computing to nature, and yet most of the general public wonders what purpose these numbers could actually serve. To answer this question, we will examine the importance of a prime number of a particular form, the Mersenne Prime. Mersenne Primes are special primes of the form 2p-1, where p is a prime number. While this may seem like a simple math problem, it turns out that not all numbers in that form will be prime, and to this day only 48 Mersenne Primes have been determined to exist, but not all of the exact numbers have been determined. So why are these numbers so important, and why are there so many different people interested in finding them? By looking closely at some of the more recent developments of the search for Mersenne Primes, can reveal why these numbers are so important.