For years, a French mathematician searched for a proof that a gigantic number is prime. His method is still used 150 years ...

Prime numbers are quite extraordinary. They're like "special snowflakes" - unique in the way that they don't have any other positive divisors other than the number 1 and the prime number itself.

A prime number is a whole number, greater than 1, that only has two factors. A factor is a number that divides another number evenly, with no remainder or decimal. The factors of a prime number are ...

The study of prime numbers has long been a central part of number theory, a field traditionally pursued for its own sake and for the mathematical beauty of its results. The number theorist Don Zagier ...

Computing prime factors may sound like an elementary math problem, but try it with a large number, say one that contains more than 600 digits, and the task becomes enormously challenging and ...

A shard of smooth bone etched with irregular marks dating back 20,000 years puzzled archaeologists until they noticed something unique – the etchings, lines like tally marks, may have represented ...

Prime numbers are beautiful and fascinating – and an infuriating puzzle. Easy to define, yet rowdy and disordered, the primes have no evident pattern. The more of them you list, the more erratic they ...

Mathematicians have been studying the distribution of prime numbers for thousands of years. Recent results about a curious kind of prime offer a new take on how spread out they can be. You may have ...