WARNING: Contains Numbers

Key Takeaways

so well I'm thrilled today we've got a present uh one of our viewers has sent us a present this mysterious box uh and check out check out the warning on the box warning contains numbers exciting I think so so U shall we open up the box and see what this present is we actually got two of these one for Brady one for me uh we really appreciate that thank you very much for sending this there we go we have got some mysterious object here not sure what it is yet Brady that's awesome what do you think yeah what do you think it's going to be we're going to have to plug it in now I think you should this one's yours Brady I think you should have the first press of the big red button I have no idea what's going to happen here oh do I try it again now have you worked out what it's doing yet these are prime numbers each one is a new prime number it's a prime number generator this was made by our viewer Cole lman and he makes kinetic sculptures uh so these sculptures that move and do exciting things and he's made well a short series of these and he sent us a couple and you'll get the next prime number oh and it's so satisfying especially if you like having a big red button to press and it gives you a feeling of the gaps between the primes as well you see how you some are short oh that was nice that was satisfying a nice long Gap it's really nice I I I mean it's it's a bit of silly fun There's no practical use to it or anything but I i' love it you can't reset it you're stuck now you have to go through all the Primes until you reach 999,999 then it'll wrap back to zero now we're about 251,000 here now the prime number theorem one of the big theorems in mathematics says that the average gap between the primes should be round about the natural log of 251,000 I know that's about 12 so the average Gap should be about 12 some are going to be bigger than 12 some are smaller sometimes you get a twin Prime and sometimes you get a long Gap but the really exciting number to wait for is 492,000 because at 492,000 you get the longest Prime Gap that this machine can generate it's a gap of 114 uh so I think that will be an exciting day when we can get to 492,000 so uh Carl has put in a microprocessor in this I don't think it's doing anything clever uh I think it counts the gaps uh between the primes and uh he only has a few of these um perhaps we can put a link to his website and he can tell people about his work that would be nice and uh but when they're gone they're gone I'm afraid it was such a surprise I I got a huge box uh at my delivered to my work and uh I I no idea what it was I wasn't told it was coming so I had this huge box and I was digging through all this packaging and and then this is what comes out the other side and uh I mean I plugged it in uh it was given me to me with a letter so I did kind of know what it was but it's the it's the oh it's the clicking noise I mean I was so thrilled you do realize I had to pay the import tax for this really yeah he paid me back he paid me back do you know what I really want a twin Prime give us a twin Prime of course of course I'll do that for you well it won't be it won't be this it could be this no could be this no what about a sexy [Laughter] Prime was that a twin Prime I think that might have been a twin Prime then woo twin Prime and it shows you it shows you it does actually show you something about the randomness of the primes they turn up frequently uh but they're kind of unpredictable as well Carl has very kindly signed it for us he's dated it and he's numbered uh the the primer that's what he's called it it's primer number four and I just showed this to Brady and he was very disappointed because he hasn't got a prime number uh I got Prime I got number three I got primary number three