By Nikhil Mahen
Who would have thought numbers are interesting? I guess, at some level, everyone. However, there would be few in the world that would get such a manic adrenaline rush by looking at prime numbers as Marcus du Sautoy. Marcus gave an exhilarating and memorable talk on the basic building blocks of numbers – you know, the prime ones.
He began with his own personal stories (or what normal people would call idiosyncrasies); living in prime number houses, wearing prime number jerseys, taking prime number buses; I hope sincerely hope that’s where the obsession ends. Marcus then took us on a fantastic journey of how we see prime numbers and tricking us to thinking that we understand series’ and patterns. He went to share stories of these group of seemingly insignificant numbers only to show us that by finding the biggest one we need not work again (ref: million dollar prize).
Marcus used prime numbers as his magic wand to show us the fun side of prime numbers. His wit, trickery and story-telling left the whole audience with a smile on their face and amazement in their mind. The only drawback of the talk: I was so captivated that I forgot to take notes and have to write all this from memory! Nature is truly beautiful, and if we are to believe Marcus, we really should be taking a look at what makes it so.
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