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 ...

mathematics number theory prime numbers twin primes conjecture All topics More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes came up with a method for finding prime numbers that continues ...

Mathematicians have been studying the distribution of prime numbers for thousands of years. Recent results about a curious kind of prime offer a new take on how spread out they can be. You may have ...

A mathematician who went from obscurity to luminary status in 2013 for cracking a century-old question about prime numbers now claims to have solved another. The problem is similar to—but distinct ...

The recent spate of popular books on the Riemann hypothesis, which concerns the distribution of prime numbers and is the greatest unsolved math problem since Andrew Wiles solved Fermat's famous last ...

Think back to elementary school during which you learned about a seemingly useless mathematical relic called prime numbers. Your teacher told you in class one day that they are special numbers, ...

After shocking the mathematics community with a major result in 2013, Yitang Zhang now says he has solved an analogue of the celebrated Riemann hypothesis. A mathematician who went from obscurity to ...