Prime number

In mathematics, a prime number (or prime) is a natural number greater than one whose only positive divisors are one and itself. Or for short: A prime number is a natural number with exactly two natural divisors. A natural number that is greater than one and is not a prime is called a composite number. The numbers zero and one are neither prime nor composite. The property of being a prime is called primality. Prime numbers are of fundamental importance in number theory.

Applications

Extremely large prime numbers (that is, greater than 10100) are used in several public key cryptography algorithms. Primes are also used for hash tables and pseudorandom number generators.

Related Topics:
Public key cryptography - Hash table - Pseudorandom number generator

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