KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Mathematicians at the University of Central Missouri have identified the largest prime number yet, but good luck remembering it. The university said Wednesday that a group led by ...

Luke Durant was folding his laundry right into his suitcase ahead of a trip back home to Alabama when he decided to check his computer and see if he had made history. He figured that, like every other ...

Luke Durant, a researcher and amateur mathematician, has identified the largest new prime number known to humankind. The newly discovered prime number is 2 to the power of 136,279,841, then minus one.

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 ...

SHAPIRO: What do the numbers two, three, five, seven, 11 and 13 have in common? SUMMERS: OK, luckily, I know this one. They are all prime. And if you keep going higher - like, way, way, way higher - ...