11–20 of 139 posts
Is there a reason we're obsessed with primes beyond aesthetics? Why does this set of numbers garner all the headlines as opposed to some other arbitrary integer sequence like the Recamán numbers [0] ? If tomorrow someone discovered a closed-form equation for the nth prime, how would mathematics/the world change? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recamán%27s_sequence
Is there a reason we're obsessed with primes beyond aesthetics? Why does this set of numbers garner all the headlines as opposed to some other arbitrary integer sequence like the Recamán numbers [0] ? If tomorrow someone discovered a closed-form equation for the nth prime, how would mathematics/the world change? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recamán%27s_sequence
Is there a reason we're obsessed with primes beyond aesthetics? Why does this set of numbers garner all the headlines as opposed to some other arbitrary integer sequence like the Recamán numbers [0] ? If tomorrow someone discovered a closed-form equation for the nth prime, how would mathematics/the world change? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recamán%27s_sequence
Any major step towards understanding them (such as a closed-form equation for primes) would have major mathematical knock-on effects which may or may not undermine these methods, or provide us with a basis for even stronger cryptographic mechanisms to make use of in the future.
They've included 1 as not a prime. That was a fairly recent decision.
They've included 1 as not a prime. That was a fairly recent decision.
Is there a reason we're obsessed with primes beyond aesthetics? Why does this set of numbers garner all the headlines as opposed to some other arbitrary integer sequence like the Recamán numbers [0] ? If tomorrow someone discovered a closed-form equation for the nth prime, how would mathematics/the world change? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recamán%27s_sequence
Your original link 404'd on me (you seem to have replaced it with a different one though). Here's the working Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recamán%27s_sequence
First, memorize all the two-digit primes. 25 numbers isn't that hard to memorize.
Then, tell someone "Oh, I can instantly tell whether a number is prime or not. Give me a number, I'll tell you whether it's prime."
If they tell you a number between 1 and 100, use your memorized list. Otherwise, it's a game of cold reading; if they just generated a random string of many digits, there's a low chance that the number actually is prime. "21923847" is a keysmash, and it's almost certainly not prime, because the frequency of primes goes down as numbers get bigger. And most people will ask you a number, hear "no", and then go check the number's primality. Eventually, they'll look up a number in advance; that number is almost certainly prime.
Curious if that is common in other countries?
When I was a fifth grader in China, we were required to memorize all prime numbers below 100. Curious if that is common in other countries?