ode to primes

I spent a great deal of energy in college studying prime numbers. People have asked me many times what the purpose of such an endeavor is. I will say that for one, they are the only numbers really worth studying. If you look at all the numbers, and I know that you really can't... not all at once or in any finite period of time anyway, but if you look at the idea of integers on a number line, you can see that the primes make up sort of a fundamental backbone of the entire line. Every other number can be filled in or derived by adding combinations of the primes. I know this is obvious, but it's cool if you really try to visualize it. I remember playing the game in high school where you write all the numbers from 1 to 100 on the chalk board and for each prime (starting with 2, the first true prime number), you circle it and then cross out each of its subsequent factors. If you can play that game and still tell me that primes aren't cool, then you and I will never get each other.

The other reason it's important for every person, whether they like math or not, to learn their primes, is this: if you are ever captured by aliens and you feel they might not understand that you are a sentient being, your only hope is to repeatedly tap out the first 5 or 6 prime numbers on a wall or force field, whatever they've got you in. If it's slime, you have to stomp your feet or something. This way the aliens, who undoubtedly understand mathematics themselves or they wouldn't have made a spaceship that can fly, will automatically know you possess intelligence and might think twice before putting you in a zoo. Hey, I mean, they still might but what else can you do?

So today's lesson is: don't insult the primes. Not only are they the fundamental element to all whole numbers, and hence everything in the universe, but they could get you out of a jam. They are truly the universal language, more so than even music or Esperanto. So yes, I believe they are a worthwhile thing to study.