gauss, by the way, also proposed using mathematics to communicate with extraterrestrials.eemingly 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 the "mozart of math." so, terry, thanks for coming and helping us learn about prime numbers. >> thanks, though it's funny i'm called mozart, because i'm terrible at the piano. >> so, terry, i know that the primes are a deep and abiding interest of yours, and i think they are for a lot of people because on the one hand they seem like they just occur arbitrarily as we go along the number lines. so in the beginning they're sort of closely spaced, and then as we start whizzing down to the end of the