Prime numbers are all the rage these days. I can tell something’s up when random people start asking me about the randomness of primes—without even knowing that I’m a mathematician! In the past couple ...

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the new largest known prime number, having 22,338,618 digits, on a university computer volunteered by Curtis Cooper for the project. The ...

The online computer game “Is this prime?” tests a player’s knowledge of prime numbers—and just surpassed 2,999,999 attempts. Give it a whirl. The Greek mathematician Euclid may very well have proved, ...

A shard of smooth bone etched with irregular marks dating back 20,000 years puzzled archaeologists until they noticed something unique – the etchings, lines like tally marks, may have represented ...

To determine if a number is prime, you can use the following steps: (i) Check if the number is greater than 1. Prime numbers must be greater than 1. (ii) Check divisibility: Divide the number by all ...

QKD uses photons — the smallest units of light — to securely transmit encryption keys. Any attempt to intercept them disturbs ...

In 1749, Leonhard Euler solved a longstanding open problem in number theory, proving Fermat’s 1640 conjecture that any prime number of the form 4m + 1 can be written as the sum of two squares. This ...

Toronto Metropolitan University provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation CA. Toronto Metropolitan University provides funding as a member of The Conversation CA-FR. A number is ...