Prime numbers are tricky things. We learn in school that they’re numbers with no factors other than 1 and themselves, and that mathematicians have known for thousands of years that an infinite number ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. A new proof has brought mathematicians one step closer to understanding the hidden order of those “atoms of arithmetic,” the prime ...

Is 170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,884,105,727 prime? Before you ask the Internet for an answer, can you consider how you might answer that question without a ...