Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
So what is the highest prime number you can find in your collection? No prizes, apart from eternal fame within Stamporama!
Jan-Simon
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Math was never my strong suit, but…
Bob
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If you ignore the decimal point on higher value GB Machins, that is count the value in pence, there could be quite a few.
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Here are two and three:
David
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... and five:
David
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And this is the highest prime number I could find. I don't have this stamp in my collection though
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02:10:21pm
As a math teacher for many years your definition of a prime number is not the one I am used to, but it seems to work. I have a friend who is a statistician and told me once as part of a conversation about how poorly kids are taught Mathematics that 1 is a prime number. Since he is my age (70) I guess math has been taught badly for a long time. Since Paul loves to argue I left him in his ignorant state!! The definition I always used was "any positive number that has exactly two distinct factors", but each to his/her own as long as it works!!
For you mathematicians out there here is an interesting article on primes. I had a math club as a high school teacher and the kids competed, and usually won, in many contests. I told them that to save time they should have at least the first one hundred primes memorized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pr ...
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Although it brings nerdiness to a next level, I just cannot imagine why it would be practical to memorize the first one hundred prime numbers. Perhaps one has to be a math teacher to understand it
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05:35:23pm
I know it sounds like a stupid thing to do but these kids were competing in pretty high level math contests where time was very important. Often a question would involve finding the factors of a number. Knowing a number is prime would sometimes save a few valuable seconds. You really had to be there to see how excited these kids got during these contests - it was their equivalent of winning a baseball game! Even nerds have to have fun!!
Edit: We won the provincial championship 4 times and those kids were just as excited about those awards as a baseball team would be winning the provincials. I coached baseball for about 10 years, got to the provincials twice and never won. But I did notice how excited the winning teams were! 
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"I just cannot imagine why it would be practical to memorize the first one hundred prime numbers."
Jan-Simon, you have obviously never been a "nerd". Practicality does not come into play in that domain. Knowledge (even if useless - or perhaps especially if useless) is king...
Just watch the Scripp's National Spelling Bee. Nerd heaven, where four of the most recent winning words were auslaut, erysipelas, aiguillette, and pendeloque. What do they mean? Who knows. Who cares. But the uber-nerds got them right.
And knowing the first one hundred prime numbers? A true nerd would say "I chortle at your naivety kind sir. I learned the first 731 prime numbers before I concluded breast-feeding at age three, and could recite the decimals of pi to the 11,413th position by age 13".
Respectfully submitted, Dave.
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How many philatelic "nerds" do we have here?
Dave, here is something else to wonder about in the nerdy domain.
The first set of stamps (GB #1 and #2...both prime numbers) were issued in 11 and 2 plates (prime numbers)
The next design used for GB stamps (Scott #5, a prime number) was issued in 1847 (a prime number)
rrr...
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07:35:14pm
Hate to correct such a refined and good person rrr, but contrary to popular belief, 1 is not a prime number - it has to have 2 different factors!! Sorry!!
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Harvey, Yes indeed...but I purposely added 1, being a contrarian:
When I was in grammar school, prime was defined as numbers divisible without remainder only by themselves and by 1. (and 1 qualified...no mention made of "different" numbers). Maybe they oversimplified it for the 5 year old kids, but that was what was taught in the French system.
So, I know, prime numbers are precisely defined in more advanced math as not including 1, but I think it is discriminatory for young kids, and for me, 1 will always be a prime number, and one within a very special category that you can add to your list of categories of prime numbers: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pr ... )!
Can we call it "primo prime", or the first prime, for old timers like me schooled in the old ways?
rrr
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09:40:40pm
Rrr, for a scholar and gentleman such as yourself I hereby decree that henceforth and forever more we shall put 1 in a special category - it is a prrrime number!!!
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noun: nombre premier:
(mathématiques) désuet|fr Entier naturel ne possédant comme diviseurs entiers positifs que l’unité et lui-même. Cette définition comprend 1.
I guess I was not having false memories.
rrr...
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Ralph, I did not know you had French roots?
Dave, most people say I certainly am a nerd, and for me it includes things like wanting to know how things work, being interested in trivial historical details, mathematics and loving Monty Python.
Your definition of nerdiness seems to border on a mix of autism and arrogance (sorry if I offend anyone). Having spent most of my time among nerds, I recall a fondness for knowledge, but no need to brag about it. And that knowledge, how specialist, weird or trivial it might seem to others, always had a practical use.
Learning dictionaries by heart for competitions is very un-nerdlike. However, I can imagine nerds learning those words to use in some form of secret banter that only they understand, just for the fun of it and pissing others off who do not understand it. At least, that's my opinion and is what I did with friends in secondary school. We made up words and used them as much as we could and laughed when we got a strange look.
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10:58:10am
"I did not know you had French roots?"
What kind of root is a french root? Is it similar to a square root or more like a cube root? When I had math club I used to teach how to find complicated square roots without a calculator (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIrjN2On ... ). I remember one of my kids had French roots, maybe he used a different method!!!
On a slightly more serious note, I grew up with nerds and know their habits quite well. They were close to normal, just much smarted. I remember two brothers Nard (Bernard) and Crunch (Phillip) who would sit in a bar over beers and play full games of chess in their heads - way above my level. My first girl friend in university was "normal" even though her IQ was sky high. She preferred string quartets over concerts and classical music over rock, but other than that, almost normal. They are like us, just smarter!! I always figured nerds would eventually rule the world but look at most of the World leaders we actually ended up with. I doubt if any of them would ever qualify to be members of MENSA, or even know what it is!
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I thought it was time for some fun, so I have a challenge for you: show us a stamp from your collection with a face value that is a prime number. Just to be sure, a prime number is a number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller numbers. So here are a few examples:
So what is the highest prime number you can find in your collection? No prizes, apart from eternal fame within Stamporama!
Jan-Simon
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re: Prime numbers
Math was never my strong suit, but…
Bob
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re: Prime numbers
If you ignore the decimal point on higher value GB Machins, that is count the value in pence, there could be quite a few.
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this post
re: Prime numbers
Here are two and three:
David
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re: Prime numbers
... and five:
David
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re: Prime numbers
And this is the highest prime number I could find. I don't have this stamp in my collection though
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This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
17 Sep 2022
02:10:21pm
re: Prime numbers
As a math teacher for many years your definition of a prime number is not the one I am used to, but it seems to work. I have a friend who is a statistician and told me once as part of a conversation about how poorly kids are taught Mathematics that 1 is a prime number. Since he is my age (70) I guess math has been taught badly for a long time. Since Paul loves to argue I left him in his ignorant state!! The definition I always used was "any positive number that has exactly two distinct factors", but each to his/her own as long as it works!!
For you mathematicians out there here is an interesting article on primes. I had a math club as a high school teacher and the kids competed, and usually won, in many contests. I told them that to save time they should have at least the first one hundred primes memorized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pr ...
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re: Prime numbers
Although it brings nerdiness to a next level, I just cannot imagine why it would be practical to memorize the first one hundred prime numbers. Perhaps one has to be a math teacher to understand it
Login to Like
this post
This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
17 Sep 2022
05:35:23pm
re: Prime numbers
I know it sounds like a stupid thing to do but these kids were competing in pretty high level math contests where time was very important. Often a question would involve finding the factors of a number. Knowing a number is prime would sometimes save a few valuable seconds. You really had to be there to see how excited these kids got during these contests - it was their equivalent of winning a baseball game! Even nerds have to have fun!!
Edit: We won the provincial championship 4 times and those kids were just as excited about those awards as a baseball team would be winning the provincials. I coached baseball for about 10 years, got to the provincials twice and never won. But I did notice how excited the winning teams were!
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11:40:19pm
re: Prime numbers
"I just cannot imagine why it would be practical to memorize the first one hundred prime numbers."
Jan-Simon, you have obviously never been a "nerd". Practicality does not come into play in that domain. Knowledge (even if useless - or perhaps especially if useless) is king...
Just watch the Scripp's National Spelling Bee. Nerd heaven, where four of the most recent winning words were auslaut, erysipelas, aiguillette, and pendeloque. What do they mean? Who knows. Who cares. But the uber-nerds got them right.
And knowing the first one hundred prime numbers? A true nerd would say "I chortle at your naivety kind sir. I learned the first 731 prime numbers before I concluded breast-feeding at age three, and could recite the decimals of pi to the 11,413th position by age 13".
Respectfully submitted, Dave.
1 Member
likes this post.
Login to Like.
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re: Prime numbers
How many philatelic "nerds" do we have here?
Dave, here is something else to wonder about in the nerdy domain.
The first set of stamps (GB #1 and #2...both prime numbers) were issued in 11 and 2 plates (prime numbers)
The next design used for GB stamps (Scott #5, a prime number) was issued in 1847 (a prime number)
rrr...
Login to Like
this post
This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
18 Sep 2022
07:35:14pm
re: Prime numbers
Hate to correct such a refined and good person rrr, but contrary to popular belief, 1 is not a prime number - it has to have 2 different factors!! Sorry!!
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re: Prime numbers
Harvey, Yes indeed...but I purposely added 1, being a contrarian:
When I was in grammar school, prime was defined as numbers divisible without remainder only by themselves and by 1. (and 1 qualified...no mention made of "different" numbers). Maybe they oversimplified it for the 5 year old kids, but that was what was taught in the French system.
So, I know, prime numbers are precisely defined in more advanced math as not including 1, but I think it is discriminatory for young kids, and for me, 1 will always be a prime number, and one within a very special category that you can add to your list of categories of prime numbers: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pr ... )!
Can we call it "primo prime", or the first prime, for old timers like me schooled in the old ways?
rrr
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this post
This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
18 Sep 2022
09:40:40pm
re: Prime numbers
Rrr, for a scholar and gentleman such as yourself I hereby decree that henceforth and forever more we shall put 1 in a special category - it is a prrrime number!!!
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re: Prime numbers
noun: nombre premier:
(mathématiques) désuet|fr Entier naturel ne possédant comme diviseurs entiers positifs que l’unité et lui-même. Cette définition comprend 1.
I guess I was not having false memories.
rrr...
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re: Prime numbers
Ralph, I did not know you had French roots?
Dave, most people say I certainly am a nerd, and for me it includes things like wanting to know how things work, being interested in trivial historical details, mathematics and loving Monty Python.
Your definition of nerdiness seems to border on a mix of autism and arrogance (sorry if I offend anyone). Having spent most of my time among nerds, I recall a fondness for knowledge, but no need to brag about it. And that knowledge, how specialist, weird or trivial it might seem to others, always had a practical use.
Learning dictionaries by heart for competitions is very un-nerdlike. However, I can imagine nerds learning those words to use in some form of secret banter that only they understand, just for the fun of it and pissing others off who do not understand it. At least, that's my opinion and is what I did with friends in secondary school. We made up words and used them as much as we could and laughed when we got a strange look.
Login to Like
this post
This is my diabetic cat OBI! I think, therefore I am - I think! Descartes, sort of!
19 Sep 2022
10:58:10am
re: Prime numbers
"I did not know you had French roots?"
What kind of root is a french root? Is it similar to a square root or more like a cube root? When I had math club I used to teach how to find complicated square roots without a calculator (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIrjN2On ... ). I remember one of my kids had French roots, maybe he used a different method!!!
On a slightly more serious note, I grew up with nerds and know their habits quite well. They were close to normal, just much smarted. I remember two brothers Nard (Bernard) and Crunch (Phillip) who would sit in a bar over beers and play full games of chess in their heads - way above my level. My first girl friend in university was "normal" even though her IQ was sky high. She preferred string quartets over concerts and classical music over rock, but other than that, almost normal. They are like us, just smarter!! I always figured nerds would eventually rule the world but look at most of the World leaders we actually ended up with. I doubt if any of them would ever qualify to be members of MENSA, or even know what it is!
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