A prime number is a whole number that can only be divided by 1 and itself. A former Nvidia programmer discovered the world's largest known prime number using graphics processing units.

Ask Ars: Why spend time and money finding new prime numbers? That new 17-million digit Mersenne prime number might matter. Someday.

The largest known prime number has been discovered by a computer at a university in Missouri in the US. Prime numbers - such as two, three, five and seven - are divisible only by themselves and ...

The new prime number discovered at the very end of 2017 corresponds to M77232917. It has 23,249,425 digits – almost a million digits more than the previous record-holding prime.

The largest known prime number has been discovered, smashing the previous record by more than 16 million digits.

There’s a new largest known prime number in town, with a whopping 23,249,425 digits. The figure is calculated by multiplying 2 by itself 77,232,917 times and then subtracting 1.