Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
1–10 of 22 posts
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#2"Prime numbers, which are divisible only by themselves and one, have little mathematical importance. Yet the oddities have long fascinated amateur and professional mathematicians."
This article really highlights the need for better science journalism. Not to mention several paragraphs are plagiarized directly from this other article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23138-new-17milliondig...
I can only guess, though, that Fox News stopped reading that New Scientist article at the "diamond" metaphor because the next paragraph states directly that prime numbers "underpin the cryptographic techniques used to make online transactions secure," which even to the layperson should seem pretty damn important...
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#3They also appear to claim that the newly discovered prime is "2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times". It's been a while since I studied math, but I'm pretty sure that's not prime.
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#4Their first statement "there is little mathematical value to finding a single new prime" is very true, but in the second half of the article someone demonstrates his 'competence'...
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#5"Prime numbers, which are divisible only by themselves and one, have little mathematical importance. Yet the oddities have long fascinated amateur and professional mathematicians." This article really highlights the need for better science journalism. Not to mention several paragraphs are plagiarized directly from this other article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23138-new-17milliondig... I can only guess, th…
If only that were true. I think that industry has done a good job of training people to expect insecure transactions.
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#6"Fox News Publishes Crap" is not really news.
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#7"Prime numbers, which are divisible only by themselves and one, have little mathematical importance. Yet the oddities have long fascinated amateur and professional mathematicians." This article really highlights the need for better science journalism. Not to mention several paragraphs are plagiarized directly from this other article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23138-new-17milliondig... I can only guess, th…
Fox News is bad at reporting everything. Why does this not signify the need for better journalism period?
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#8They also appear to claim that the newly discovered prime is "2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times". It's been a while since I studied math, but I'm pretty sure that's not prime.
He just phrased it unclear.
He should have written it like that:
>2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times (written mathematically as 2^57,885,161) - 1
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#9I'm a huge fan of Wikipedia's Simple English wiki, and its page on prime numbers gives a great example of why:
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_number
Without having to wade through pages and pages of information, you very quickly gain an understanding of the basics.
A 30-second skim of this page - which includes "Prime numbers are very important in mathematics and computer science." - would've prevented this reporter making such an obvious mistake.
Re: Fox News: "Prime numbers have very little mathematical significance"
#10They also appear to claim that the newly discovered prime is "2 multiplied by itself 57,885,161 times". It's been a while since I studied math, but I'm pretty sure that's not prime.
They missed the "minus one", it's correct in the second part of the same sentence.