“We’ve been stuck and running out of ideas on the problem for a long time, so it’s automatically exciting when anyone comes up with new insights,” said James Maynard, a mathematician at the University ...

A new proof has debunked a conspiracy that mathematicians feared might haunt the number line. In doing so, it has given them another set of tools for understanding arithmetic’s fundamental building ...

Prime numbers are those that can be divided cleanly only by themselves and by 1. The first primes are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, and 23. Prime numbers are where imaginary mathematics begins. They are ...

Mrs. Post and her kids, Hayden and Hallie, play a curveball game to review what prime and composite numbers are. Rise and Shine is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on ...

Prime numbers are all the rage these days. I can tell something’s up when random people start asking me about the randomness of primes—without even knowing that I’m a mathematician! In the past couple ...

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 ...

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.

A new largest prime number can now enter the record books. But at 22 million digits, we’re going to need a bigger book. The newest massive prime, though indivisible by any number other than 1 and ...