A basic feature of number theory, prime numbers are also a fundamental building block of computer science, from hashtables to cryptography. Everyone knows that a prime number is one that cannot be ...

Prime numbers have been investigated for more than 2,000 years, since at least the era of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid. There are infinitely many, but what is the largest known prime number?

An odd new paper without peer review claims prime numbers have "genes," "roots," and “offspring." Prime numbers are essential to modern life because they underpin all of encryption. What is written ...

What is your favorite number? For many people, it may be an irrational number such as pi (π), Euler's number (e) or the square root of 2. Even among the natural numbers (positive integers), there are ...

A shard of smooth bone etched with irregular marks dating back 20,000 years puzzled archaeologists until they noticed something unique – the etchings, lines like tally marks, may have represented ...

There are infinitely many prime numbers, but the biggest one we know of goes by the name M136279841 and contains more than 41 million digits. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn ...