Hi. Last week, we explored how math opens the
door to truth. And sometimes, truth can feel
serious, heavy. But there's another side to it.
Sometimes, truth is beautiful. Something that
draws us in. Something we want to explore. And
this week, we're going to see that side of math.
Okay, I have nine grandchildren. And one thing
I love about them is not only are they the cutest
kids around, but they are naturally curious.
They remind me that learning does not always
have to feel serious. So this week is an invitation
to approach math with that same playful, childlike
curiosity. This week, our focus is prime numbers.
So let's begin with a simple why question. Why
study the primes? It seems like most great ideas
come from one of two places, need or curiosity.
Some ideas solve problems. Yes, we need bridges,
medicine, technology. But other ideas do not
come from need at all. They come from curiosity,
from wonder. People have spent centuries studying
it, finding new depth, new meaning, new beauty.
Prime numbers are like that. They were not invented.
They were discovered thousands of years ago.
Yep, and here we are today, still exploring them.
Why? Let's imagine we did not know anything about
primes. or just playing with rocks, trying to
arrange them into rows and columns. Something,
I guess, interesting, or maybe fascinating, perhaps
strange, happens. Some numbers form rectangles
easily, but others refuse. Five rocks, seven
rocks, thirteen rocks. No matter how you arrange
them, they will not form a perfect rectangle.
Those are our prime numbers. This is what I call
a low score. Low meaning even a child can discover
this just by playing. But here's the crazy cool
part. Even though the idea is simple, we still
do not fully understand the primes. Mathematicians
have studied prime numbers for thousands of years.
And yet, the more we find, we find we know so
little. That is the high ceiling. Easy to begin,
impossible to finish. At first, primes feel like
just a list. Two, three, five, seven, eleven.
But over time, something moves or changes. It
is less like looking at a list and more like
stepping into a world. Like in Narnia from a
C .S. Lewis novel. You open a door expecting
something small and find something vast. The
deeper you go, the more it feels like these numbers
aren't just things we created, but something
we've discovered. Something. with its own structure,
its own mystery. Prime numbers are not a solution
to a problem. They are an invitation, an invitation
to explore, to notice, to wonder. So this week,
let's try something a little different. As we
move from the floor to the ceiling of prime numbers,
let's look at math. not just for what it can
do for us, but for what it is. Let's discover
math that is interesting in itself. In doing
so, we may experience a new side of what math
truly is.