A basic feature of number theory, prime numbers are also a fundamental building block of computer science, from hashtables to cryptography.

Prime numbers can be sorted into different types. In 1202, Leonardo Fibonacci introduced in his book “ Liber Abaci: Book of Calculation ” prime numbers of the form (2 p - 1) where p is also prime.

Both arithmetic aficionados and the mathematically challenged will be equally captivated by new research that upends hundreds of years of popular belief about prime numbers.

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 ...

This ends the 28-year reign of ordinary personal computers finding these huge prime numbers. The effort to find this prime number has been spearheaded by Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS).

The popular fantasy card game Magic: The Gathering has a new card related to prime numbers. Now fans are trying to use it to tackle one of the biggest problems in mathematics ...

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

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