Prime numbers are tricky things. We learn in school that they’re numbers with no factors other than 1 and themselves, and that mathematicians have known for thousands of years that an infinite number ...

The three smallest prime numbers are 2, 3 and 5. It's easy to find out if small numbers are prime — one simply needs to check what numbers can factor them. When mathematicians consider large numbers, ...

A new proof has brought mathematicians one step closer to understanding the hidden order of those “atoms of arithmetic,” the prime numbers. The primes — numbers that are only divisible by themselves ...