Prime numbers are all the rage these days. I can tell something’s up when random people start asking me about the randomness of primes—without even knowing that I’m a mathematician! In the past couple ...

The largest known prime number has been discovered by an amateur researcher and former Nvidia employee. The new number is 2 136,279,841 – 1, which beats the previous title holder (2 82,589,933 – 1) by ...