Prime numbers have been investigated for more than 2,000 years, since at least the era of the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid. There are infinitely many, but what is the largest known prime number?

Luke Durant, a 36 year-old researcher and former NVIDIA employee, used a free program, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), to identify the new prime through an advanced algorithm. The ...

(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 ...

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 - ...

Typed out in Times Roman 12 point font, number would stretch more than 30 miles or fill more than six Bibles A mathematician at the University of Central Missouri has discovered what is now the ...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – 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 ...

In context: Prime numbers are those divisible only by 1 and themselves and include mathematical oddballs like 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11. While they start out simple, primes rapidly become sparse amid the ...

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - After running 1,000 computers non-stop for 39 days to uncover the world's largest prime number yet, a Missouri college professor said this week he is starting all ...

A supercomputer has something for the record books. A computer has found the largest known prime number. It's 22 million digits long. Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search — -- Here's one for the ...