The Numbers Universe

I'm currently reading Simon Singh's "Fermat's Last Theorem" which I picked up after reading "The Mathematical Secrets of The Simpsons" and it's probably the first book that I've read where I immediately reference the footnotes and appendices as soon as they are referenced in the book. I'm not sure what my fascination with numbers is but I do enjoy exploring the concepts to some of the ideas may cause people to say so  "So What?".

The value of Π (Pi) for instance is essential to be right for all sorts of calculations and engineering constructs. The mechanical clock would not work if Π were not adhered to and more importantly neither would the wheel.

Fermat's Last Theorem is basically:

In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ for any integer value of n greater than 2.

And a lot of people will say "So What?" to that but it is an intriguing puzzle that certainly fires my imagination and Simon Singh's presentation of the story certainly keeps my interest up at 100% as it's mixed in with a whole slew or other theories and conjectures taking in Pythagoras, Euclid and of course Andrew Wiles who finally proved the Theorem.

I've also installed Grammarly to see if it can improve my blog writing. It has spooted the odd mistake but also has flagged the theorem aⁿ + bⁿ = cⁿ as an error so I will see how this progresses. Though this post seems relatively free of howlers.

One of my favourite TED talks ever is a twenty minute talk on prime numbers by an Australian DJ, Adam Spencer. And Grammarly just flagged up an error then so it's just proved it's worth.

Cat Stevens (Yusuf Islam as he is now) released an album in 1975 called numbers which was in a nice package which is not available digitally but I will close this post with "Banapple Gas" from the album.

Prime Time

Reading "How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life" by Jordan Ellenberg  and there are some complex concepts in there and we're talking prime numbers (or should that be Prime Numbers) and he make a stange but true point n and n+2 are more likely to be a pair of prime numbers than n and n+1.  Now given that after 1, 2 and 3 only odd numbers can be prime, it seems a strange point to make. 29 and 31 are prime but 30 isnt, 31 and 33 are not both prime but I think 131 and 133 are. It also talks about the apparent randomness of prime number distribution, which obviously cannot be random because the nature of numbers is set in stone ... sort of.

Below is one of my favourite TED talks on very large prime numbers by Australian DJ Adam Spencer. This talk held no interest for me, or so I though but it is a brilliant way to spend twenty minutes and you learn a lot as well.


So it's 7AM and we need a numerical song to go with it and what about The Jam's "Away From The Numbers" , my nay is spent dealing with numbers but there are times when maybe a rest would do me good