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 are intriguing numbers that are greater than 1 and can be evenly divided only by themselves and 1. The four smallest prime numbers are 2, 3, 5 and 7. Next comes 11, which is quite a ...

A new prime number has been discovered that is more than 16 million digits larger than the largest prime number ever found. The number is 2^136279841-1, which is 41,024,320 decimal digits and would ...

Both arithmetic aficionados and the mathematically challenged will be equally captivated by new research that upends hundreds of years of popular belief about prime numbers. Contrary to what just ...

Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. For many people ...

John Voight receives funding from the Simons Foundation and is affiliated with the Number Theory Foundation. Imagine a number made up of a vast string of ones: 1111111…111. Specifically, 136,279,841 ...

2. 3. 5. 7. 11. 13. 17. And so on. This is far from a comprehensive list of prime numbers—if we were to compile and write out an exhaustive list of all known prime numbers, this would be a truly ...

Mersenne prime refers to a prime number among Mersenne numbers which is "a natural number less than 1 to the power of 2". According to GIMPS, the 50th Mersenne prime "M77232917" is 23,249,494 digits, ...