Description Poster Prime Time
"They grow like weeds among the natural numbers, seemingly subject to no other law than chance, and no one can predict where another will sprout, nor can anyone tell by looking at a number whether it is prime or not." (Don Zagier)
Having students recite prime numbers is a hobby of many math teachers - and that, even though prime numbers had no real use for over 2000 years. Only since the advent of electronic computing machines have prime numbers really come into their own. They are particularly well-suited for encrypting data! Without prime numbers, secure surfing on the internet would probably be much more difficult, so one can confidently speak of the Prime Time of these special numbers ;)
This poster highlights prime numbers in a sequence up to 1089 in the form of the well-known Ulam spiral. The 48th Mersenne prime, 257,885,161-1, the largest known prime number so far, forms the crowning conclusion.
We would have liked to see this impressive number in its full size on the poster, but with 17,425,170 decimal digits, it is incredibly huge. If you were to print it on A4, you would need thousands of sheets.
By the way, it took a computer a whole 39 days to find it... So that it doesn't get lost and you can quickly remember it, you need a Prime Time Poster, because then you have those numbers, which are said to have a mysterious beauty, very close to you :) This is a must for every mathematician!
