Prime Numbers and Quantum Physics

[Buttercup McToots]

Quote:

Prime Numbers Get Hitched

In their search for patterns, mathematicians have uncovered unlikely connections between prime numbers and quantum physics. Will the subatomic world help reveal the elusive nature of the primes?

by Marcus du Sautoy • Posted March 27, 2006 12:40 AM

From the FEB/MAR 2006 issue of Seed:


In 1972, the physicist Freeman Dyson wrote an article called "Missed Opportunities." In it, he describes how relativity could have been discovered many years before Einstein announced his findings if mathematicians in places like Göttingen had spoken to physicists who were poring over Maxwell's equations describing electromagnetism. The ingredients were there in 1865 to make the breakthrough—only announced by Einstein some 40 years later.

It is striking that Dyson should have written about scientific ships passing in the night. Shortly after he published the piece, he was responsible for an abrupt collision between physics and mathematics that produced one of the most remarkable scientific ideas of the last half century: that quantum physics and prime numbers are inextricably linked.

This unexpected connection with physics has given us a glimpse of the mathematics that might, ultimately, reveal the secret of these enigmatic numbers. At first the link seemed rather tenuous. But the important role played by the number 42 has recently persuaded even the deepest skeptics that the subatomic world might hold the key to one of the greatest unsolved problems in mathematics.


Full Article:

http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2006/03/prime_numbers_get_hitched.php?page=1


Interesting read.

[redqueen]

1. 42?!

Get outta here!

thanks for posting this :)

[unpossibles]

2. 42? Isn't that the answer?

all joking aside, this is really cool. I am a hack, but I find number pattern extremely fascinating.

Actually, I like patterns in general, and my dad being a math wizard, I supose it makes sense.

[villager]

3. 42!? Are you serious? Isn't that from "Hitchhiker's Guide?"

I guess Doug Adams wasn't foolin'...

[porphyrian]

4. Douglas Adams was a genius. - n/t

[Buttercup McToots]

5. Take a break from the chaos of the world...pretty nifty, eh?

For 2,000 years the problem of the pattern of the primes—or the lack thereof—has been like a magnet, drawing in perplexed mathematicians. Among them was Bernhard Riemann who, in 1859, the same year Darwin published his theory of evolution, put forward an equally-revolutionary thesis for the origin of the primes. Riemann was the mathematician in Göttingen responsible for creating the geometry that would become the foundation for Einstein's great breakthrough. But it wasn't only relativity that his theory would unlock.

Riemann discovered a geometric landscape, the contours of which held the secret to the way primes are distributed through the universe of numbers. He realized that he could use something called the zeta function to build a landscape where the peaks and troughs in a three-dimensional graph correspond to the outputs of the function. The zeta function provided a bridge between the primes and the world of geometry. As Riemann explored the significance of this new landscape, he realized that the places where the zeta function outputs zero (which correspond to the troughs, or places where the landscape dips to sea-level) hold crucial information about the nature of the primes. Mathematicians call these significant places the zeros.

[Buttercup McToots]

7. I love this stuff...my favorite pastime

Riemann's discovery was as revolutionary as Einstein's realization that E=mc2. Instead of matter turning into energy, Riemann's equation transformed the primes into points at sea-level in the zeta landscape. But then Riemann noticed that it did something even more incredible. As he marked the locations of the first 10 zeros, a rather amazing pattern began to emerge. The zeros weren't scattered all over; they seemed to be running in a straight line through the landscape. Riemann couldn't believe this was just a coincidence. He proposed that all the zeros, infinitely many of them, would be sitting on this critical line—a conjecture that has become known as the Riemann Hypothesis.

But what did this amazing pattern mean for the primes? If Riemann's discovery was right, it would imply that nature had distributed the primes as fairly as possible. It would mean that the primes behave rather like the random molecules of gas in a room: Although you might not know quite where each molecule is, you can be sure that there won't be a vacuum at one corner and a concentration of molecules at the other.

[Rex]

6. Everything in the Universe can be found between zero and one.

The meaning of the Universe? The answer is 'green cantaloupe'! Carry on.

[nealmhughes]

8. Next on my to-do list: Fibonacci sequence....

this is tres kewl...

[Buttercup McToots]

10. Odd places to find Fibonacci numbers

1·61803 39887 49894 84820 45868 34365 63811 77203 09179 80576 ..More..

Miscellaneous, Amusing and Odd places to find Phi and the Fibonacci Numbers
TV Stations in Halifax, Canada
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, there are 4 non-cable TV channels and they are numbered 3, 5, 8 and 13! Prof. Karl Dilcher reported this coincidence at the Eighth International Conference on Fibonacci Numbers and their Applications in summer 1998.
Turku Power Station, Finland
Joerg Wiegels of Duesseldorf told me that he was astonished to see the Fibonacci numbers glowing brightly in the night sky on a visit to Turku in Finland. The chimney of the Turku power station has the Fibonacci numbers on it in 2 metre high neon lights! It was the first commission of the Turku City Environmental Art Project in 1994. The artist, Mario Merz (Italy) calls it Fibonacci Sequence 1-55 and says "it is a metaphor of the human quest for order and harmony among chaos."

[Buttercup McToots]

11. A math problem

In Fibonacci's Liber Abaci book, chapter 12, he introduces the following problem (here in Sigler's translation - see below):
How Many Pairs of Rabbits Are Created by One Pair in One Year?
A certain man had one pair of rabbits together in a certain enclosed place, and one wishes to know how many are created from the pair in one year when it is the nature of them in a single month to bear another pair, and in the second month those born to bear also.

[tridim]

9. I'll bet $3.14 that Pi is closely related to Quantum Physics as well

That's Pi the number, not "Pi" the pseudo-intellectual, crappy Sci-Fi film.

Pi is one kick ass number! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi