Primes
Pascal's triangle, in two colours
Shade the odd numbers in Pascal's triangle and a fractal appears. Nothing was designed to produce it, and the same shape arrives independently from a completely different construction.
The primes on a spiral, and a pattern nobody ordered
Wind the whole numbers outward in a square spiral, mark the primes, and they line up on diagonals. The observation is a hundred years old and there is still no proof it means anything.
Numbers that wrap
A clock does arithmetic. It has finitely many numbers, addition never leaves it, and multiplication behaves entirely differently depending on one property of the size of the dial.
Named alongside it
The objects these essays reach for when they reach for this one.
ParityBinomial coefficientConjectureCramér's modelCyclic groupFermats little theoremGreatest common divisorKummer's theoremLucas' theoremModular arithmeticOrderPeriodicity