A prime factor is a natural number, other than 1, whose only factors are 1 and itself. The first few prime numbers are actually 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, and so on. Now we can also use what’s called prime ...

A prime number has exactly two factors, itself and one. The first ten prime numbers are \({2}\), \({3}\), \({5}\), \({7}\), \({11}\), \({13}\), \({17}\), \({19 ...

Any number can, in theory, be written as the product of prime numbers. For small numbers, this is easy (for example, the prime factors of 12 are 2, 2, and 3), but for large numbers, prime ...

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 phenomenal success of our integrated circuits managed to obscure an awkward fact: they're not always the best way to solve problems. The features of modern computers—binary operations, separated ...