Prime numbers near to each other tend to avoid repeating their last digits, the mathematicians say: that is, a prime that ends in 1 is less likely to be followed by another ending in 1 than one ...

Math is the search for patterns in numbers to reveal an underlying rule or concept. Like many of today’s students who are coached to search for patterns in numbers, numbers persons understand ...

One set rises gradually, another moderately and the third steeply. Count the number of spirals and you’ll find eight gradual, 13 moderate and 21 steeply rising ones. Fibonacci numbers again.

Because of this, the team suggests aliens could arrange their planets in sequences that are unlikely to form naturally, such as a prime number sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on) or the Fibonacci ...

About a year ago, the theoretical chemist Salvatore Torquato met with the number theorist Matthew de Courcy-Ireland to explain that he had done something highly unorthodox with prime numbers, those ...