Prime Curios!: The Dictionary of Prime Number Trivia - Paperback

by G. L. Honaker Jr (Author), Chris K. Caldwell (Author)

This is a dictionary of prime number trivia, an eclectic collage of miscellaneous facts. A few of these tidbits have deep mathematical significance, but many are simple observations which require no mathematics. For example, in what year did England make it illegal to jail a jury for returning the "wrong" decision? What was Jenny's phone number in Tommy Tutone's hit song? What is the highest number of votes a candidate received for the U.S. Presidency while incarcerated? Other results are quasi-mathematical, such as those having to do with the shape or representation of a number. Consider the prime 18181: This number is the same forwards, backwards, and even upside down--do you know how many of these primes there are? Can a prime be small and even, and at the same time, large and odd? The heart of our book is the 235-page dictionary of 2151 curios about 1095 different primes recorded dictionary style as brief entries, with over 150 tables and figures.

Author Biography

Chris K. Caldwell is a professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He earned his PhD in Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley and did his undergraduate work at California State University East Bay. His areas of research include prime number theory and the use of computers (especially the World Wide Web) to teach mathematics. G. L. Honaker, Jr. lives in Bristol, Virginia. A graduate of Virginia Intermont College, he has taught mathematics and science at a juvenile detention center for over 17 years. His enthusiasm for prime numbers is the driving force behind the online collection: "Prime Curios!" He also enjoys chess and teaching the solution to Rubik's Cube to those of all ages.