A basic feature of number theory, prime numbers are also a fundamental building block of computer science, from hashtables to cryptography.

For centuries, prime numbers have captured the imaginations of mathematicians, who continue to search for new patterns that help identify them and the way they’re distributed among other numbers.

That prime numbers and powers of 2 fascinate many people comes as no surprise. In fact, all numbers split into two camps: interesting and boring ...

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.

In his senior year of high school, Daniel Larsen proved a key theorem about Carmichael numbers — strange entities that mimic the primes. “It would be a paper that any mathematician would be really ...

The discovery of the largest prime number ever found has just been announced to the world. 2 136,279,841 -1, known as M136279841, was found by amateur “prime-hunter” Luke Durant on October 11 ...

However, rather than proving pi is irrational directly, it's also possible to confirm irrationality using a different property of the number.

Jared Duker Lichtman proved a long-standing conjecture relating prime numbers to a broad class of “primitive” sets. To his adviser, it was a “complete shock.” ...