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Re: What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 15:16:33 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Steve Lamont <spl () ncmir ucsd edu> Date: October 1, 2008 2:13:35 PM EDT To: dave () farber netSubject: Re: [IP] What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com
What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? By Andrew Heining | 09.30.08 [. . .] Besides keeping your identity secure, primes have long been used as a math shortcut, helping with factoring, linear equations, and other things you probably haven't thought about since high school.
This passage strikes me as incredibly sad and disturbing. In dismissing "factoring [and] linear equations" as things "you probably haven't thought about since high school", the author of this piece perhaps unintentionally explains why a number of things in modern life seem to have gone badly wrong. A little knowledge of basic mathematics, for example, might have prevented or at least ameliorated the current crisis in the financial markets. The inability to understand and use numbers and simple equations or formulae and the critical thinking skills which go with them is probably partly at the root of buyer's lack of understanding of their now exploding mortgages. Basic math, the kind you learned in high school, would have told buyers that they weren't going to be able pay the now exorbitant mortgage interest rates. Basic math, the kind you learned in high school, would have the buyers of those mortgages that they were buying into a Ponzi scheme which would come crashing down on their heads. I'm sure readers of this list can think of more examples. Math. . . it isn't just for High School any more. spl ------------------------------------------- Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
Current thread:
- What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com David Farber (Oct 01)
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- Re: What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com David Farber (Oct 01)
- Re: What can you do with a 12-million-digit prime number? | csmonitor.com David Farber (Oct 02)