Prime number the 1970s, mathematicians and physicists have speculated that the zeros of the Riemann zeta function are connected to the energy levels of quantum systems. Prime numbers are also significant in quantum information science, thanks to mathematical structures such as mutually unbiased bases and symmetric informationally complete positive-operator-valued measures. The evolutionary strategy used by cicadas of the genus "Magicicada" makes use of prime numbers. These insects spend most of their lives as grubs underground. They only pupate and then emerge from their burrows after 7, 13 or 17 years, at which point they fly about, breed, and then die after a
Prime number a product of prime numbers is called a "prime factorization" of the number. For example: The terms in the product are called prime factors. The same prime factor may occur more than once; this example has two copies of the prime factor formula_28. When a prime occurs multiple times, exponentiation can be used to group together multiple copies of the same prime number: for instance, in the second way of writing the product above, formula_29 denotes the square or second power of formula_28. The central importance of prime numbers to number theory and mathematics in general stems from the "fundamental