A new proof about prime numbers illuminates the subtle relationship between addition and multiplication — and raises hopes for progress on the famous abc conjecture. One morning last November, the ...

Using a notion called integer partitions, mathematicians have discovered a new way to detect prime numbers while also connecting two areas of math in an unexpected way When you purchase through links ...

What are the prime factors, or multipliers, for the number 15? Most grade school students know the answer -- 3 and 5 -- by memory. A larger number, such as 91, may take some pen and paper. An even ...

This is a preview. Log in through your library . Abstract The quadratic sieve algorithm was used to factor a 47-digit number into primes. A comparison with Wagstaff's results using the continued ...

Mathematicians sometimes think of their research as a garden and unsolved problems as seeds waiting to sprout. Some problems are analogous to tulip bulbs. As mathematicians work to solve them, they ...

Quantum computers still can’t do much. Almost every time researchers have found something the high-tech machines should one day excel at, a classical algorithm comes along that can do it just as well ...

Somewhere at the edge of mathematics lurks a number so large that it breaks the very foundations of our understanding - and ...

Researchers report that they have designed and built a quantum computer from five atoms in an ion trap. The computer uses laser pulses to carry out Shor's algorithm on each atom, to correctly factor ...