Quotes for All
A prime number is one (which is) measured by a unit alone. Euclid
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
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 … Read more
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
The largest known prime number is 2^32582657-1. I am proud to say that I memorized all its digits-in binary. Carl Pomerance
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 … Read more
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
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
The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers. Bill Gates
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