Prime numbers are found hidden in nature, but humans have made spectacular use of them, writes mathematician Marcus du Sautoy.

Luke Durant, a 36-year-old researcher who attended the Alabama School of Math and Science, has discovered the largest prime number known to mathematicians.

Somewhere out there on the number line, huge prime numbers are lurking, waiting to be discovered. On Wednesday, a new one was. The Great Internet Mersenne Prime… ...

The biggest prime number ever found has 22 million digits. That's an insanely large number. Mathematicians have unveiled a new record-breaking prime number: 2 74,207,281 – 1.