Prime numbers A prime number has exactly two factors, itself and one. The first ten prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23 and 29.

A basic feature of number theory, prime numbers are also a fundamental building block of computer science, from hashtables to cryptography.

What Ono and his team have now discovered is that partitions —a concept that counts the ways a number can be broken down into sums of smaller integers— contain hidden patterns capable of revealing ...