Prime numbers are tricky things. We learn in school that they’re numbers with no factors other than 1 and themselves, and that mathematicians have known for thousands of years that an infinite number ...

The three smallest prime numbers are 2, 3 and 5. It's easy to find out if small numbers are prime — one simply needs to check what numbers can factor them. When mathematicians consider large numbers, ...

One of my favorite anecdotes about prime numbers concerns Alexander Grothendieck, who was among the most brilliant mathematicians of the 20th century. According to one account, he was once asked to ...