particular, the primes were of deep interest to one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, carl friedrich gauss. born in 1777, itself a prime number, gauss was a child prodigy who, at an early age, calculated lists of primes into the millions. gauss, by the way, also proposed using mathematics to communicate with extraterrestrials. but he considered prime numbers to be of the highest significance and wrote, "the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated." gauss would be the first person to see that the seemingly unpredictable occurrences of the primes actually had a beautiful and succinct description. so a modern-day mathematician who can help us figure out what gauss was getting at is our own terry tao. so terry is a professor of mathematics at ucla, a recent recipient of the fields medal, which is mathematics' highest honor, and also a recipient of a macarthur genius award. so, and in fact, gauss, who was called the "prince of mathematics," well, terry's not a prince, but he has been called t

particular, the primes were of deep interest to one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, carl friedrich gauss. born in 1777, itself a prime number, gauss was a child prodigy who, at an early age, calculated lists of primes into the millions. gauss, by the way, also proposed using mathematics to communicate with extraterrestrials. but he considered prime numbers to be of the highest significance and wrote, "the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated." gauss would be the first person to see that the seemingly unpredictable occurrences of the primes actually had a beautiful and succinct description. so a modern-day mathematician who can help us figure out what gauss was getting at is our own terry tao. so terry is a professor of mathematics at ucla, a recent recipient of the fields medal, which is mathematics' highest honor, and also a recipient of a macarthur genius award. so, and in fact, gauss, who was called the "prince of mathematics," well, terry's not a prince, but he has been called t