In May 2013, the mathematician Yitang Zhang launched what has proven to be a banner year and a half for the study of prime numbers, those numbers that aren’t divisible by any smaller number except 1.

Prime numbers, the "atoms of arithmetic," have captivated mathematicians for centuries. These numbers, divisible only by themselves and one, appear deceptively random yet hide intricate patterns.

A prime number is a whole number greater than one that has exactly two factors. Those two factors are one and the number itself. This definition is found across many school curriculums. Examples ...

Ken Ono, a top mathematician and advisor at the University of Virginia, has helped uncover a striking new way to find prime numbers—those puzzling building blocks of arithmetic that have kept ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Prime numbers are essential for technologies like RSA encryption, which rely on the difficulty of guessing these numerals. A new ...

Ken Ono, the STEM Advisor to the Provost and Marvin Rosenblum Professor of Mathematics at the University of Virginia, has been named a runner-up for the 2025 Cozzarelli Prize in the physical sciences, ...

Mathematicians have taken a step forward in understanding patterns within the primes, numbers divisible only by 1 and themselves. According to the new work, the population of prime numbers contains an ...

Prime numbers could describe the chaotic region inside black holes according to a study. (Image: Canva) Scientists link prime numbers to black hole physics patterns. Prime numbers might explain chaos ...