You probably remember prime numbers from school. They’re numbers like 2, 3 and 17, which are only divisible by themselves and one. But the prime numbers you learned in school are puny compared to the ...

The online computer game “Is this prime?” tests a player’s knowledge of prime numbers—and just surpassed 2,999,999 attempts. Give it a whirl. The Greek mathematician Euclid may very well have proved, ...

Prime numbers are all the rage these days. I can tell something’s up when random people start asking me about the randomness of primes—without even knowing that I’m a mathematician! In the past couple ...

In May 2013, the mathematician Yitang Zhang launched what has proven to be a banner year and a half for the study of prime numbers, those numbers that aren’t divisible by any smaller number except 1.

A new largest prime number has been discovered, mersenne.org reported Tuesday. 2 57,885,161-1, which is also the 48 th Mersenne prime, was discovered on the computer of Dr. Curtis Cooper, a professor ...

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the new largest known prime number, having 22,338,618 digits, on a university computer volunteered by Curtis Cooper for the project. The ...

On Jan. 25, the largest known prime number, 2^57,885,161-1, was discovered on Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) volunteer Curtis Cooper's computer. The new prime number, 2 ...

Prime numbers—integers that are divisible only by themselves and 1—are the easiest path into understanding both rigor and mysticism in mathematics. Euclid’s proof that there is an infinite number of ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American When I saw a math paper with the phrase ...