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

UCLA mathematicians appear to have won a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for discovering a 13-million-digit prime number that has long been sought by computer users.

Prime numbers can only be divided by themselves and 1. Find out how to work out if a number is a prime in this Bitesize Primary Second Level Maths guide.

Meet the new largest known prime number. It starts with a 4, continues on for 23 million digits, then ends with a 1. As is true with all prime numbers, it can only be evenly divided by one and ...

A collaborative computer project has discovered the largest known prime number. The new prime number is nearly one million digits larger than the previous record prime number, in a special class ...

Don't know if you've heard, but there's a new largest known prime number in town. On 26 December, mathematicians scored a late Christmas present when a computer owned by a 51-year-old engineer in ...

Prime numbers are one of the most basic topics of study in the branch of mathematics called number theory. Primes are numbers that can only be evenly divided by themselves and 1.