As everyone knows, the occasion of my birthday is Saturday on which I will become an age twice a prime number – something that won’t happen again for eight more years (MATH QUESTION: Does that leave a finite possibility for my age, or are there an infinite number of answers – disregarding what is considered to be a normal human life span and the best guess at the age of the universe). Since I won’t be posting Saturday, my birthday will be celebrated on my blog tomorrow. Be prepared to heap praise upon me (plus I have a special surprise).
We are all busy at work at the next podcast, and expect it to be posted Monday. Then, expect a podcast every Monday. Soon, Monday will be your most favoritest day of the week.
Until then, live with honor, ronin.
Infinite, as there are an infinite number of prime numbers that exist just 4 numbers from each other. If you were already 26 you’da known that already.
Just think of it as an infinite subset of infinity. Have a good one Frank!
First to say jimmyb!
haha.
youre twenty six.
and im just twenty one.
I don’t get it. All primes are odd except maybe 2 if you want to be technical. Twice an odd number is an even number. An even number plus 8 is still even. There are no even primes, except for that pesky 2.
Lucy, you got some splainin to do.
Oh. Never mind. Your age in eight years isn’t prime, it is twice a prime. Sorry.
scotty,
You assert that, but can you prove it?
I hope there is cake tomorrow…and maybe icecream. mmmm icecream
Heh, my birthday is Sunday. I’m almost as cool as Frank J!
And I’ll be the same age as you.
Scary…
My proof? Uhh, well, it’s around here, uhh… somewhere… Besides, you’re an electrical guy, right? That’s the first double-prime after college. When I turned 26 the electrical guys around where I work spent a good day discussing double primes and other nonsense. It’s. Just. What. You. Guys. Do. Sorry.
(A mechanical guy)
I’d like somebody to name a set of primes other than 3 and 7, 7 and 11, and 13 and 17 that are 4 apart.
37 and 41.
I’d wish you a happy birthday, but I’m too distraught by the Puppy Blender’s recent post in which he appears to be offering his pet cat Precious up for adoption.
http://instapundit.com/archives/023381.php
He claims to have discovered that the BlenderDaughter is allergic to cats, but I wonder if that is just a convenient cover story for a much darker truth?
It reminds me of another famous movie pet named “Precious”
Today’s my birthday! Happy birthday Frank. And the other guy on Sunday… June is the bestest month ever!
Blenster
Haha nice. Bet you can’t beat this:
104707 104711
Wow, Frank’s going to be 14! Congrats, little buddy!
Steve,
You freakin’ Rainman!!!
Pathetic.
4403234261353, 4403234261357
Those are the 156,839,242,594th and 156,839,242,595th primes respectively.
Took me about twenty seconds. Give me an hour or so to write a program and I bet I could find some big numbers.
Here’s a couple of 301 digit primes separated by 4.
879177082437471699331603046745510927410974407585227549686650660897309371746754\
168032296688936002944925131836348377615673151886303826942666891526537781616020\
428567976436757497210495430921208866531306085271202700546816775721690894369862\
1422794576559173274210187593617203666290901249143074165939506395649
879177082437471699331603046745510927410974407585227549686650660897309371746754\
168032296688936002944925131836348377615673151886303826942666891526537781616020\
428567976436757497210495430921208866531306085271202700546816775721690894369862\
1422794576559173274210187593617203666290901249143074165939506395653
good grief!
numbers flying around everywhere!
DUCK!
Oh my. I’m surrounded by electrical guys. Somebody help me.
See what you’ve started FrankJ? This could get ugly! Happy B-day anyway.
Well, Frank, you could logically be 6 (I’m not banking on this one), 14, 26, 38, 74, or 106 (wouldn’t bank on that last one either).
If you became a bionic person and lived forever (at least until you got wet and shorted something out), then well, there are infinite possibilities which finite me is too lazy to work out.
I think we should have a point spread on what age people think Frank J is:
38 – 3:2
26 – 3:1
14 – 5:1
74 – 11:1
106 – 13:1
6 – 17:1
(Note – all point spread numbers are prime numbers. Yay mathematical gambling.)
Now we can all bet with cool points and see who wins what.
I’ll start by betting 100 cool points that Frank J is 38.
To bet on Frank J’s birthday and write odes in his praise I have created this post. Do come visit and say nice things about Frank J.
It is unknown whether there is an infinite number of answers or not. The conjecture that there is is known as Polignac’s conjecture for n=2. See here. (That page calls it ‘de Polignac’s conjecture’, but that is wrong for reasons given here.)
Why do you ask?
Thanx, jerk — I actually stared at that post for a while so I could get the right answer. How dorky was that? Well, definitley dorkier than all the previously-posted wrong answers, but still: what precisely were you doing when this mathematical oddity revealed itself to you? I know the obvious answer is out — December ain’t for a while yet . . .
I’ve not read the comments above, but intuitively, primes become generally farther apart as they increase, so I’d say no. Now I’ll read the comments an post again. Thanks for the math question!
Wow. That was quick. I now think there are an infinite number of primes separated by a value of four. But there are obviously a finite number smaller than or equal to the estimated age of the universe. (I’m an astrophysics guy, so I put that at about 15 gigayears).
In an hour or so I could write a program which on my ~GHz computer will find the upper limit (Hubble Time) probably by morning.
Or not.
Whoa, now I’m with David Deutsch: Since we can’t put an upper limit on the prime pairs with difference four AND and upper limit on the age of the universe (since we don’t know what the universe was like before the Planck Time), then we can’t answer the question.
Why does he ask? Because he can!
First to say Spacemonkey!!!
26 BTW.
You know, it is patently unfair for you to be that talented, and that young at the same time.
Blast you FrankJ!!! shakes fist
You’ve ruined 2 keyboards and my self-esteem (I’m old)!!
Oh, yeah. Happy Birthday!!! 🙂
I’ve got my search program looking up around the thousand decimal digit region for consecutive primes separated by four. I’ll check on it when I get into my office ion the morning.
Wow frank your old.
I didn’t know there was going to be any math today.
My B-day is in a bit over a week, I’m born in the same month as Frank, Cool.
June Rocks!
I also didn’t know there would be math today :o(…(reminds me of a bad dream).
Thank goodness I’ve been reading IMAO for more than a year now, so I know that Frank is 26. Just a baby! The first picture I saw of him (when he met with Bill Whittle for lunch) he only looked about 12. Cutie pie!
Happy Birthday!
Don’t know about the Prime number thing but I do know that ANY guys born in June are HOMOSEXUALS!!! IT HAS BEEN PROVEN BY ME!
Wow. This conversation just took a turn for the worse.
Thought that might stop that gay math stuff…
I didn’t read the link about whether this is the same question as de polignack conjecture, but I calculated the number of primes seperated by four within the first 100000 primes and it came out to be 10213. So I can’t prove the conjecture, but like the Reimann hypothesis the empirical evidence looks good.
Here’s two 903 digit primes separated by four. Took about three days of run time to find.
792321581778321953183919483209530870053185701591220606978978696774915782478675\
545012468966924509962574955972944741720455632832827190970940187893967114560616\
278545848725760518573976890341678522073601076507009147792582527279679783589752\
466957455335808599399172894564155830622234561120612853103996934217234033192086\
418415784525491892969292891457681618735042706700441165764770447193130153291496\
314779955647689965364892974141142567620522656523067980995888754981710943655178\
958216892558708548886701233359306732250693816440139108627907389756357314207788\
655309695843489685571104863836459823137920119915653271461992928147973929203528\
362207722588868526613485530672232970538685027250968436479719144130789131399843\
287369341855607804249000066446042027755396617044847900814922094969752271401060\
015556160034898230187269278903970095866101985192146017638907806881751631305011\
721280927423314088807953902383337940992830657
792321581778321953183919483209530870053185701591220606978978696774915782478675\
545012468966924509962574955972944741720455632832827190970940187893967114560616\
278545848725760518573976890341678522073601076507009147792582527279679783589752\
466957455335808599399172894564155830622234561120612853103996934217234033192086\
418415784525491892969292891457681618735042706700441165764770447193130153291496\
314779955647689965364892974141142567620522656523067980995888754981710943655178\
958216892558708548886701233359306732250693816440139108627907389756357314207788\
655309695843489685571104863836459823137920119915653271461992928147973929203528\
362207722588868526613485530672232970538685027250968436479719144130789131399843\
287369341855607804249000066446042027755396617044847900814922094969752271401060\
015556160034898230187269278903970095866101985192146017638907806881751631305011\
721280927423314088807953902383337940992830661