“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 ...

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 ...

Like a mirror image of Bedford's Law, mathematicians have found a pattern in prime numbers that raises more questions than it answers. Share on Facebook (opens in a new window) Share on X (opens in a ...

Prime numbers are a central topic of study in math. Despite being an object of fascination for millennia, there are still a lot of unsolved problems involving primes. Prime numbers are one of the most ...

A Japanese mathematician claims to have the proof for the ABC conjecture, a statement about the relationship between prime numbers that has been called the most important unsolved problem in number ...

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 ...

Fermat’s last theorem is just one of many examples of innocent-looking problems that can long stymie even the most astute mathematicians. It took about 350 years to prove Fermat’s tantalizing ...