For years, a French mathematician searched for a proof that a gigantic number is prime. His method is still used 150 years ...

Here’s a number to savor: 2 43,112,609-1. Its size is mind-boggling. With nearly 13 million digits, it makes the number of atoms in the known universe seem negligible, a mere 80 digits. But its true ...

WHEN a number is given, and it is required, without the aid of tables, to find its factors, there is nor, I believe, any other method known except the simple but laborious one of dividing it by every ...

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Prime numbers—integers that are divisible only by themselves and 1—are the easiest path into understanding both rigor and mysticism in mathematics. Euclid’s proof that there is an infinite number of ...