Meet the new largest known prime number. It starts with a 4, continues on for 23 million digits, then ends with a 1. As is true with all prime numbers, it can only be evenly divided by one and itself.

Editor's Note: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story omitted part of the calculation for the new prime number, correctly described below as 2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times ...

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 ...

Prime numbers, vital in mathematics and competitive exams, can be quickly identified using a systematic approach. This method involves checking divisibility by primes up to the square root of the ...

A group of mathematicians at the University of Central Missouri have just discovered a new prime number, and at more than 22 million digits, it’s the longest one yet. People have been hunting for ...