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 ...

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 ...

You are able to gift 5 more articles this month. Anyone can access the link you share with no account required. Learn more. KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Mathematicians at the University of Central Missouri have ...

(CNN) — For many people, prime numbers have faded into the background since distant grade school days. However, for Luke Durant, a 36-year-old former Nvidia programmer, prime numbers became an ...

NPR asked the typographers at Hoefler & Frere-Jones to estimate how long this Mersenne prime would be if typed out -- all 12,987,189 digits. The answer, it turns out, depends not only on the font but ...

Here’s a number to savor: 2 43,112,609-1. Printing out all 13 million digits in 12-point type would create a number 30 miles long. But here are a few of the digits, from the beginning and the end of ...

Update, Jan. 4, 2018: On Wednesday, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search announced that a computer owned by Jonathan Pace in Germantown, Tennessee, discovered a new prime number. At 23,249,425 ...