How to Use prime number in a Sentence

prime number

noun
  • There’s a p-adic number system for each prime number: the 2-adics, the 3-adics, the 5-adics, and so on.
    Quanta Magazine, 7 Sep. 2021
  • What even number is not the result of two prime numbers?
    Jared Beasley, New York Times, 18 Mar. 2023
  • Rather than guess a six-letter word, the goal of Primel is to guess a five-digit prime number in just six tries.
    Elizabeth Berry, Woman's Day, 14 Feb. 2022
  • There's also a fear of the prime number called triskaidekaphobia.
    USA TODAY, 29 Jan. 2024
  • Gaussian primes are prime numbers that can’t be written as a sum of two perfect squares.
    Dave Linkletter, Popular Mechanics, 9 Aug. 2019
  • The typical notion of a prime number doesn’t make sense for finite fields.
    Quanta Magazine, 26 Sep. 2019
  • In reality, the prime number is large, and so are the other numbers.
    Amir Aczel, Discover Magazine, 31 July 2013
  • And when the parties return to the real world and talks turn to a sequel, expect to see a lot of zeroes behind a prime number or two.
    Borys Kit, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Aug. 2023
  • The background software running on the computer unearthed a rare kind of prime number called a Mersenne prime.
    Valencia Prashad, New York Times, 26 Jan. 2018
  • The twin primes conjecture concerns pairs of prime numbers with a difference of 2.
    Wired, 29 Sep. 2019
  • What are the prime numbers that multiply together to make 667?
    Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 6 Dec. 2019
  • Equivalently, if xN − x is not a multiple of N, then N can’t be a prime number.
    Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 3 Apr. 2023
  • Like a normal prime number, these can only be divided by themselves and one.
    Hallie Detrick, Fortune, 8 Jan. 2018
  • But Cooley says this theory is flawed: Cicadas don’t have 11- or 19-year cycles, yet these are prime numbers, too.
    Amy McKeever, National Geographic, 3 June 2020
  • On Prime day, addresses that contain a prime number may water.
    Star Tribune, 30 July 2021
  • The fact that 97 is a prime number—divisible only by 1 or itself—is supposed to make the system more secure.
    Eugenia Cheng, WSJ, 20 June 2018
  • The hope was to hear a succession of uniform pulses or perhaps a numbering system, like a series of prime numbers.
    Matt Blitz, Popular Mechanics, 30 Apr. 2018
  • One thing and like, easy way to screw these large language models up is ask them about prime numbers, things that human beings can understand pretty well.
    Fortune Editors, Fortune, 25 May 2023
  • The prime numbers — those divisible only by 1 and themselves — are at its core, much as DNA is core to biology.
    Quanta Magazine, 1 Nov. 2023
  • Since each prime number can only be divided by 1 and itself, the set of all prime numbers is one example of a primitive set.
    Quanta Magazine, 6 June 2022
  • So on an average, for someone that did not have a credit score, by establishing their credit scores at a prime number around that 670 range.
    Fortune Editors, Fortune, 8 Feb. 2023
  • Arithmetic progressions are involved in the study of prime numbers, the elusive building blocks of number theory.
    Eugenia Cheng, WSJ, 5 Dec. 2018
  • Your work has dealt with two prominent related problems about prime numbers.
    Quanta Magazine, 20 July 2017
  • Elliptic curves also have a lot to do with prime numbers, which are only divisible by 1 and themselves.
    Lyndie Chiou, Quanta Magazine, 5 Mar. 2024
  • An irreducible polynomial — one that can’t be factored — is the analogue of a prime number.
    Alex Stone, Quanta Magazine, 5 June 2023
  • This means that prime numbers can’t be evenly divided by any smaller number except 1.
    Martin H. Weissman, Smithsonian, 2 Apr. 2018
  • The proof hinges on a centuries-old principle called quadratic reciprocity that involves the squares of two prime numbers.
    Quanta Magazine, 10 Aug. 2023
  • Rather than guess a prime number, the goal in Nerdle is to guess a (correct) calculation that follows standard order of operations.
    Elizabeth Berry, Woman's Day, 14 Feb. 2022
  • The one-way function for RSA works in a similar manner but relies on the multiplication and factorization of large prime numbers.
    Jeanne Timmons, Ars Technica, 20 Sep. 2023
  • These smaller polynomials, known as irreducible polynomials, are the prime numbers of the polynomial world.
    Kevin Hartnett, Quanta Magazine, 6 May 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'prime number.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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