An IT systems administrator used a grid of computers supplied by volunteers at the University of California, Los Angeles, to find the largest known prime number. The discovery of the 13-million-digit ...

An effort in which thousands of people donate their computers' unused processing power has uncovered the largest prime number so far known. The number, with more than 6.3 million digits, is the sixth ...

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 ...

A shard of smooth bone etched with irregular marks dating back 20,000 years puzzled archaeologists until they noticed something unique – the etchings, lines like tally marks, may have represented ...

Prime numbers are sometimes called math’s “atoms” because they can be divided by only themselves and 1. For two millennia, mathematicians have wondered if the prime numbers are truly random, or if ...