Do prime numbers have a significant importance in relation to anything?

Answer 1

I was fascinated to learn only a few years ago that
the reason that various cicadas(that loud, buzzing, daytime, summer insect) and locusts have such weird reproduction cycles, is to avoid coinciding with predatory insects. Cicadas and locusts lay their eggs and they hatch many years later in some odd cycle. With some variations of the species, that number of years is 7, others 13, and some rare varieties even - 17 years. Thus you hear of the 7 year locust. The reason, biologists speculate, is that predators tend to evolve in synch with their prey in place and season to take advantage of boom years of harvest. Usually predators mate once-a-year. When a prey insect has a boom year of reproduction and survival, the predators do as well. But when the predators are back in number the next year and the prey is not, the predators number reduce. If the predators had a cycle with 2 years and the prey with 4, the prey would be lucky every other hatching time. When the prey has a prime number of years it makes it that much more difficult for predators to coincide their birth cycle with their prey.
So here's an example where pure math is the driving force behind one segment of evolution. And when you think about it, it's mind boggling that this purely mathematical characteristic transcends even the ecological environment.

Answer 2

Well, this isn't quite as esoteric as encryption, but it is what I teach seventh graders.

Suppose you want to add 1/4 + 1/6 + 1/10 + 1/15.

You need to get the "least common denominator" (LCD). To get that, you break 4, 6, 10 and 15 down to prime numbers. It's called "prime factorization" -- something seventh graders do.

4 = 2x2
6 = 2x3
10 = 2x5
15 = 3x5

From that, the LCD is 2x2x3x5 = 60.

So 1/4 + 1/6 + 1/10 + 1/15 = 15/60 + 10/60 + 6/60 + 4/60 = 35/60 = 7/12.

You use prime numbers to do that.

Answer 3

Hi:

Yes they do, Their used for encyptioning codes and do show up in getting squares of number and there might also be used to send or recieve instellar messages { by getting some E.T. intelligence attention because there are no known natural process that generate prime numbers. By sending a series of prime numbers first and then use a 2 x 2 matrix with two big prime numbers to make pictures to tell E.T. about us and were we are located.}

Answer 4

Yes. Since every number is a multiple of prime numbers, if there were no prime numbers, there would be no numbers at all. Since numbers are important, prime numbers must be equally important.

Answer 5

Yeah, as the above user says, encryption is one use for prime numbers; the famous RSA encryption algorithm uses public and private keys based on products of two large prime numbers; the difficulty of the scheme is based on the difficulty of factorization (that is, finding the factors of a number), which essentially requires exhaustive search. A description of RSA is available here:
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/RSAEncryption.html

Answer 6

the whole point is that they're prime .... no other factors but themselves and 1 ...

so they're kind of lonely in their match-making roots ...when multiplication is the end result of this relationship, they don't factor to sweep any complex number off her feet.... although they never liked the limelight in the first place

they do make great painters those primes

Answer 7

Certainly, they directly are correlated to my ability to attain 10 points for giving a positive answer to this question, i.e. that this question may be selected as the best answer for this question.

Answer 8

Yes.

Answer 9

Patterns and algorithms...
for code hackers and encryptors

Answer 10

I think they are used in encryption, but I don't know how it works.