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 ...

Our current love affair with primes notwithstanding, many people have wondered whether this is all just abstract theoretical stuff or whether prime numbers have real-world applications.

And as you count up and up, prime numbers become more sparse. Math lovers are always competing to find the largest prime number, and just recently, an engineer discovered the largest one—so far. And ...