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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...