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Prime numbers, the building blocks of mathematics, have fascinated for centuries − now technology is revolutionizing the search for them

A shard of smooth bone etched with irregular marks dating back 20,000 years puzzled archaeologists until they noticed something unique – the etchings, lines like tally marks, may have represented ...
Scientific American

Prime Number Puzzle Has Stumped Mathematicians for More Than a Century

While I was looking for a gift for a child’s birthday, a math book fell into my hands. I am always fascinated when authors write about abstract scientific topics for children, whether it’s on Albert ...
Quanta Magazine

Mathematicians Find Long-Sought Building Blocks for Special Polynomials

Hilbert’s 12th problem asked for novel analogues of the roots of unity, the building blocks for certain number systems. Now, over 100 years later, two mathematicians have produced them. Problems in ...
KQED

The Building Blocks of Math That Students Need to Excel

ATLANTA — Students gathered around a bright blue number board in Melissa Williams’ kindergarten class at the Westminster School, gazing at the bank of 100 blank squares, organized in rows and columns ...
Wired

There’s a New Way to Count Prime Numbers

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. A new proof has brought mathematicians one step closer to understanding the hidden order of those “atoms of arithmetic,” the prime ...