3 ms·
I'm with you on this. There needs to be a term for achieving something that serves absolutely no purpose in any situation imaginable. And when I mean "no purpo
by sneakernets 8y ago
I'm with you on this. There needs to be a term for achieving something that serves absolutely no purpose in any situation imaginable.
And when I mean "no purpose", I really mean it. This prime can't even be used for encryption because it's so absurdly large, and now that it's a well-known prime, it's a cinch to check for it.
- anyfoo 8y agoYou mean like playing any other kind of sports or game? Or entertainment in general? And in this case, it does not even appear that the author really expects you to memorize anything. It’s just a few neat properties and tricks. This is not a serious article.
- sneakernets 8y agoSports and games have strong cultural connections. Primes, not so much. (And yes, I'm very much aware that this isn't serious.)
- lsc 8y agoI personally would rather connect with the small subculture that connects with large primes than with the much larger (but in my opinion, less interesting) subculture that connects with sports. I mean, I'm not saying that one is any more objectively valuable than the other, just that it's a preference, and neither one is more valid than the other.
- boxed_thought 8y agoWell, you know, I think we all remember the tune of the alphabet song, that one that ends with "...now I know my ABC's, next won't you sing with me?" And so, what the author exposes here, is a methodology for even more powerful mnemonics, that permit storing a structured value even larger than a 26 letter case-insensitive, ordered set. So perhaps that's the game we're playing, yes? Memory palaces [0] perhaps? Why not? ...or we can just leave you out of our reindeer games, next time. How about that? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci