The other story currently on the 'Numbers in the News' board is the discovery of the world's largest prime number which has over 13 million digits! (BBC story here). A prime number can only be divided by itself and 1. What possible use is that information I hear you cry? Well, if it wasn't for prime numbers we wouldn't have internet security. When you make a purchase online your details are kept secure by a process called encryption and it all relies on very large prime numbers. S3/4 have been looking at encryption in Computing.
Many year ago an Egyptian dude called Eratosthenes found a good way of finding primes - get rid of the ones that aren't! S1 followed in his footsteps. In the grid above all the multiples of 2, 3, 5 and 7 are coloured red. The numbers in white are all prime numbers. Voila!
Mr C
1 comment:
An Egyptian dude?
Mr J
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