Prime Number

A prime number is a whole number which is greater than 1 and is not created by multiplying other whole numbers. Its factors are 1 and the number itself. Numbers which have more than two factors are known as composite numbers.

Some of the first prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17 and 19.

Determining Prime Number

The property of being called a primary number is known as primality. Various algorithms have been proposed over time in order to check the primality of the number. Some of the algorithms are Miller–Rabin primality test, AKS primality test.

A computer can be used to determine the extremely large numbers if they are prime. Since a natural number can be a very large number, there is no limit of how large a natural number can be, testing can be extremely lengthy task for powerful super computers.