Both arithmetic aficionados and the mathematically challenged will be equally captivated by new research that upends hundreds of years of popular belief about prime numbers. Contrary to what just ...

An odd new paper without peer review claims prime numbers have "genes," "roots," and “offspring." Prime numbers are essential to modern life because they underpin all of encryption. What is written ...

Let σ(n) denote the sum of the positive divisors of n. We say that n is perfect if $\sigma(n) = 2n$. Currently there are no known odd perfect numbers. It is known ...

Filling a test tube with molecules made from folded DNA can work as a simple computer. The approach has been used to split two numbers into prime factors. Conventional computers work by passing ...