“You don’t have to believe in God, but you have to believe in The Book,” the Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős once said. The Book, which only exists in theory, contains the most elegant proofs of ...

Prime numbers are one of the most basic topics of study in the branch of mathematics called number theory. Primes are numbers that can only be evenly divided by themselves and 1. For example, 7 is a ...

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Kaisa Matomäki has proved that properties of prime numbers over long intervals hold over short intervals as well. The techniques she uses have transformed the study of these elusive numbers. This ...

The Monthly publishes articles, as well as notes and other features, about mathematics and the profession. Its readers span a broad spectrum of mathematical interests, and include professional ...

Update, Jan. 4, 2018: On Wednesday, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search announced that a computer owned by Jonathan Pace in Germantown, Tennessee, discovered a new prime number. At 23,249,425 ...

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