Prime numbers are sometimes called math’s “atoms” because they can be divided by only themselves and 1. For two millennia, ...

Montgomery happened to find strikingly similar behavior in the prime numbers— specifically, the correlations between the ...

Prime numbers, vital in mathematics and competitive exams, can be quickly identified using a systematic approach. This method involves checking divisibility by primes up to the square root of the ...

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. Contrary to what just ...

The seemingly random digits known as prime numbers are not nearly as scattershot as previously thought. A new analysis by Princeton University researchers has uncovered patterns in primes that are ...

One of my favorite anecdotes about prime numbers concerns Alexander Grothendieck, who was among the most brilliant mathematicians of the 20th century. According to one account, he was once asked to ...

Katie has a PhD in maths, specializing in the intersection of dynamical systems and number theory. She reports on topics from maths and history to society and animals. Katie has a PhD in maths, ...

Luke Durant, a researcher and amateur mathematician, has identified the largest new prime number known to humankind. The newly discovered prime number is 2 to the power of 136,279,841, then minus one.

JON PACE had spent 14 years searching for a monster. A finance manager at FedEx in Memphis, Tennessee, he was more comfortable trawling through spreadsheets than hunting exotic beasts. He also ...

The largest known prime number has been discovered by an amateur researcher and former Nvidia employee. The new number is 2 136,279,841 – 1, which beats the previous title holder (2 82,589,933 – 1) by ...

Luke Durant, a 36 year-old researcher and former NVIDIA employee, used a free program, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), to identify the new prime through an advanced algorithm. The ...