Sunday, September 28, 2008

My Brain Hurts

I just read that some people have discovered a 13 million digit prime number. They may win $100,000.00 for it.

1. Does the world need a 13 million digit prime number?
2. Does it improve anything for the world to know this (except for the $100,000.00 of course)?
3. Is it even possible to write or type thriteen million digits?
4. Why would people take the time to figure it out?

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

what is truly frustrating about this discovery is that the SAME day that these mathematicians announced their discovery, I had finally finished the research on a prime number consisting of 12,999,999 digits! oh, the last 10 years of my life are a waste now. I am in deep despair and don't know what I will do. I am pretty sure that some of those guys stole some of my numbers.

Naomi said...

Ellyn, I know how hard you have worked on this! Please don't despair! I bet you'll be the first to find the 13,000,001 digit prime number!

Because you are in your prime!

Unknown said...

no, it's no use now. i am leaving the field of sophisticated mathematics. it's the math world's loss. my feelings are irreparably hurt by those insensitive attention-hogs. but thank you for your encouragement. and just so you know, i DO know the 14 million digit number, and now I'm not going to tell.