Prime numbers are sometimes called math’s “atoms” because they can be divided by only themselves and 1. For two millennia, ...

“Mathematical symbolism and metaphor are present in every kind of literature, from the humblest of fairy tales right through to War and Peace,” claims mathematician Sarah Hart. In Once Upon a Prime, ...

An amateur mathematician from San Jose, US, has discovered the largest prime number yet with over 41 million digits. Prime numbers, the building blocks of mathematics, are divisible only by themselves ...

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 ...

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

Luke Durant, a researcher and amateur mathematician, has identified the largest new prime number known to humankind. The newly discovered prime number is 2 to the power of 136,279,841, then minus one.

Still, Larsen’s most recent obsession felt different, “longer and more intense than most of his other projects,” she said. For more than a year and a half, Larsen couldn’t stop thinking about a ...

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 ...