Wednesday 1 October 2008

Sexy Maths




I've started writing a new column in The Times newspaper every Wednesday that will appear in T2 under the slightly embarrassing name of Sexy Maths. The first piece is about the new record big prime that was found a few weeks ago.

Primes of Passion

3 comments:

a said...

Sexy maths: the Fibonacci sequence's prime rate - Times Online: Is 3 an exception to to the rule that a prime number in the series must be in a prime postion? 3 is a prime number but in the 4th position, i.e. a non-prime position. Have I misunderstood?

Marcus du Sautoy said...

Whoops. Well spotted. It is in fact the only exception. Every other non-prime position (except for the 4th) will give a non-prime Fibonacci number.

a said...

OK, as we have an exception to the non-primes in non-prime postions rule how do we know that there are not others?