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 ...

Today, people use complex computing networks to search for prime numbers with millions of digits. But early mathematicians were running these calculations by hand.

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.

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 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 ...

UCLA mathematicians appear to have won a $100,000 prize from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for discovering a 13-million-digit prime number that has long been sought by computer users.

Fortunately, Édouard Lucas developed a prime number test in 1878, later proved by Derrick Henry Lehmer in 1930. Their work resulted in an efficient algorithm for evaluating potential Mersenne ...