I read that they have some uses within online encryption, but to be honest I never really thought about why we learned them in school until this morning.
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Prime numbers are a bit like the elements of the periodic table but for maths. All other integers are made by combining them via multiplication, so much so that these are known as *compound* numbers. So I suppose you could ask what the actual real world application of the periodic table is. If you’re not doing anything chemistry related, then it’s useless (except in pub quizzes). But if you *are* doing something to do with chemistry, then it’s absolutely critical and foundational as it explains a bunch of important relationships that are needed for the world as we know it to work. Primes are like this but for maths.
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