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.

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 ...

The number certainly doesn't seem particularly exciting. It's not a prime number or a power of 2 or the square of some other number. The digits don't seem to follow any obvious pattern.

Both arithmetic aficionados and the mathematically challenged will be equally captivated by new research that upends hundreds of years of popular belief about prime numbers.

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 Riemann hypothesis is the most important open question in number theory—if not all of mathematics. It has occupied experts for more than 160 years. And the problem appeared both in ...

The twin primes conjecture is one of the most important and difficult questions in mathematics. Two mathematicians have solved a parallel version of the problem for small number systems.

Record For Largest Known Prime Number Broken By Amateur Mathematician Using Free Software It is the 52nd Mersenne prime to be found since they were first studied over 350 years ago.

An effort in which thousands of people donate their computers' unused processing power uncovers the largest prime number so far known.

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 ...

One favorite is the prime number theorem — a statement that describes the distribution of prime numbers, those whose only divisors are 1 and themselves. While mathematicians never know whether a proof ...