Prime numbers are whole numbers greater than 1 that are not divisible by any whole number other than 1 and itself. The first few are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 … To explain how the RSA algorithm works ...

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

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.

Prime numbers can only be divided by themselves and 1. Figuring out which numbers are prime can be tricky, so mathematicians have developed various algorithms to speed up the search.

This number has 22,338,618 digits, the last of which is a 1, and is nearly 5 million digits longer than the previous record prime.

Numbers might not sound like they need discovering, but a crowd-sourced project has now identified the largest prime number known. The number was discovered by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime ...

An online collective, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, crunched numbers for days on end to discover a new prime number in December 2017. Here’s why it’s so important.

The ongoing search for ever-larger prime numbers continues apace. Primes are the atoms of arithmetic: every whole number is a unique product of primes. For example, 21 is the product of primes ...

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 ...