IFLScience needs the contact information you provide to us to contact you about our products and services. You may unsubscribe from these communications at any time.

Prime Number Patterns Prime numbers, divisible only by themselves and 1, have long fascinated mathematicians. Discovering new ...

The basic building blocks of the whole numbers remain mysterious.

Image made with elements from Canva. Let’s go back to grade school—do you remember learning about prime numbers? They’re numbers that can only be divided by themselves and one. So 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and ...

Using a notion called integer partitions, mathematicians have discovered a new way to detect prime numbers while also connecting two areas of math in an unexpected way When you purchase through links ...

Thousands of computers across the world are currently scouring the number line in a scavenger hunt for rare mathematical gems. Enthusiasts looking for larger and larger prime numbers, which are ...

Still, Larsen’s most recent obsession felt different, “longer and more intense than most of his other projects,” she said. For more than a year and a half, Larsen couldn’t stop thinking about a ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Sometimes mathematicians try to tackle a problem head on, and sometimes they come at it sideways. That’s especially true when the ...

For all of the recent strides we’ve made in the math world—like a supercomputer finally solving the Sum of Three Cubes problem that puzzled mathematicians for 65 years—we’re forever crunching ...

On his way to winning a Fields Medal, James Maynard has cut a path through simple-sounding questions about prime numbers that have stumped mathematicians for centuries. Number theorists, however, ...

In new research, mathematicians have narrowed down one of the biggest outstanding problems in math. Huge breakthroughs in math and science are usually the work of many people over many years. Seven ...

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 ...