The largest known prime number has been discovered, smashing the previous record by more than 16 million digits.

A prime number is an integer, or whole number, that has only two factors — 1 and itself. Put another way, a prime number can be divided evenly only by 1 and by itself. Prime numbers also must be ...

The number was discovered by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), an online project of citizen scientists who spot and verify prime numbers using specialty software.

A 26-year-old graduate student in the US has made mathematical history by discovering the largest known prime number. The new number is 6,320,430 digits long . It took just over two years to find ...