A basic feature of number theory, prime numbers are also a fundamental building block of computer science, from hashtables to cryptography. Everyone knows that a prime number is one that cannot be ...

Prime numbers just got less lonely. A proof announced this week claims to show that the number of primes with a near-neighbour that is also a prime number is infinite – although the “near-neighbour” ...

A prime number is an integer, or whole number, that has only two factors — 1 and itself. Put another way, a prime number can be divided evenly only by 1 and by itself. Prime numbers also must be ...

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 2 77,232,917 -1, having 23,249,425 digits. A computer volunteered by Jonathan Pace made the find on ...

Image made with elements from Canva. Let’s go back to grade school—do you remember learning about prime numbers? They’re numbers that can only be divided by themselves and one. So 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. There's a new biggest known prime number in the universe. It's called M77232917, and it looks ...

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. On September ...