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

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 ...

If you know your way around Python, grab the code at Github and give it a shot. We used the program on our logo, resulting in the 5500-digit Popular Mechanics Prime. Isn’t it beautiful?

There’s a new largest known prime number in town, with a whopping 23,249,425 digits. The figure is calculated by multiplying 2 by itself 77,232,917 times and then subtracting 1. Announced on ...

As part of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), Curtis Cooper recently discovered the 48th and largest prime number yet found.

Two mathematicians have found a strange pattern in prime numbers—showing that the numbers are not distributed as randomly as theorists often assume. “Every single person we’ve told this ends ...

Two mathematicians have found a strange pattern in prime numbers — showing that the numbers are not distributed as randomly as theorists often assume.