Prime Numbers Quotes

• Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.

  Leonhard Euler

  Believe, Math, Order

  "Calculus Gems: Brief Lives and Memorable Mathematics". Book by George F. Simmons, 1992.

  129 Copy quote

  Show source

• God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is going on with the prime numbers.

  Paul Erdos

  Play, Numbers, May

  70 Copy quote

• Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

  Mark Haddon

  Taken, Math, Thinking

  Marilyn Herbert, Mark Haddon (2006). “Discusses the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: The Complete Package for Readers and Leaders”, p.50, Bookclub-in-a-Box

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.

  Bill Gates

  Numbers, Would Be, Development

  Bill Gates, Nathan Myhrvold, Peter Rinearson (1996). “The Road Ahead”, Wheeler Pub Incorporated

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Quadratic reciprocity is the song of love in the land of prime numbers.

  Kato

  Song, Math, Land

  17 Copy quote

• Why add prime numbers? Prime numbers are made to be multiplied, not added.

  Lev Landau

  Numbers, Add, Prime

  16 Copy quote

• A prime number is one (which is) measured by a unit alone.

  Euclid

  Numbers, Prime, Units

  "Euclid's Elements, Book 7, Definition 11". Book by Euclid,

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• 3 is a prime, 5 is a prime, and 7 is a prime. Why bother with non-prime numbers when the primes can do everything?

  William of Ockham

  Numbers, Prime, Bother

  22 Copy quote

• Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Mean, Idaho, Dignity

  "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae". Textbook by Carl Friedrich Gauss, Article 329, 1801.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Numbers, Important, Problem

  "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae". Textbook by Carl Friedrich Gauss, Article 329, 1801.

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• Although the prime numbers are rigidly determined, they somehow feel like experimental data.

  Timothy Gowers

  Data, Numbers, Determined

  Timothy Gowers (2002). “Mathematics: A Very Short Introduction”, p.121, Oxford Paperbacks

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic. It has engaged the industry and wisdom of ancient and modern geometers to such an extent that it would be superfluous to discuss the problem at length. ... Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.

  Carl Friedrich Gauss

  Mean, Numbers, Important

  "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae". Book by Carl Friedrich Gauss, 1801.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I, Galileo, son of the late Vicenzo Galilei, swear that I never said that the prime numbers are useless. What I said was that you cannot count lunar craters by counting 2, 3, 5, 7.

  Galileo Galilei

  Son, Numbers, Useless

  15 Copy quote

• The largest known prime number is 2^32582657-1. I am proud to say that I memorized all its digits-in binary.

  Carl Pomerance

  Science, Numbers, Proud

  7 Copy quote

• If all sentient beings in the universe disappeared, there would remain a sense in which mathematical objects and theorems would continue to exist even though there would be no one around to write or talk about them. Huge prime numbers would continue to be prime, even if no one had proved them prime.

  Martin Gardner

  Writing, Science, Numbers

  Martin Gardner (2009). “When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish: And Other Speculations About This and That”, p.124, Macmillan

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The brain is the only kind of object capable of understanding that the cosmos is even there, or why there are infinitely many prime numbers, or that apples fall because of the curvature of space-time, or that obeying its own inborn instincts can be morally wrong, or that it itself exists.

  David Deutsch

  Fall, Apples, Numbers

  "Philosophy will be the key that unlocks artificial intelligence" by David Deutsch, www.theguardian.com. October 3, 2012.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime. According to some ancient manuscripts 9 is not a prime number, but beyond the distant horizon of the oceans, in the New World that I am going to discover, there are surely lots of them.

  Christopher Columbus

  Ocean, Numbers, Horizon

  7 Copy quote

• It never happens that, when we go home and open the refrigerator, we see all infinitely many prime numbers there.

  Kato

  Home, Math, Numbers

  4 Copy quote

• My work on prime gaps lead to lots of media coverage, some good, some bad, some ugly, and some merely ridiculous. For example, a reporter of our university newspaper, who admitted that he is still learning English, wrote that "Prof. Goldston solved one of the most controversial problems in the prime number theory last month with support from his Turkish partner."

  Daniel Goldston

  Science, Media, Numbers

  6 Copy quote

• The prime ideal is a princess of the world of ideals. Her father is the prince 'Point' in the world of geometry. Her mother is the princess 'Prime Numbers' in the world of numbers. She inherits the purity from her parents.

  Kato

  Mother, Father, Princess

  4 Copy quote

• My dad, a mathematician, raised me to believe that mathematics is beautiful, so math is a part of my imaginative terrain. In my late 20s I wrote several 11-line poems because I wanted to create poems that couldn't be uniformly divided into couplets, tercets, or quatrains, 11 being a prime number.

  James Arthur

  Beautiful, Dad, Believe

  "Poetry As a Way of Thinking: An Interview with James Arthur". Interview with Emilia Phillips, www.32poems.com.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. If you go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers. You develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.

  Paolo Giordano

  Destiny, Numbers, Space

  4 Copy quote

• Number theorists say that number theory is too complicated, so let's pretend that there is only one prime number, and then let's combine all these results. Surprisingly, sometimes it works.

  Saharon Shelah

  Science, Numbers, Sometimes

  4 Copy quote