On Kepler Lounge I explore the relationship between Information Theory, Number Theory and Algorithmic Probability.
God may not play dice with the universe, but something strange is
going on with the prime numbers.-Erdős
Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order
in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that
it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate. To
convince oneself, one has only to glance at the tables of the primes,
which some people took the trouble to compute beyond a hundred
thousand, and one perceives that there is no order and no
rule.-Euler
A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate
the existing inequalities in the distribution of wealth, or more
directly promotes the destruction of human life. The theory of prime
numbers satisfies no such criteria. Those who pursue it will, if they
are wise, make no attempt to justify their interest in a subject so
trivial and so remote, and will console themselves with the thought
that the greatest mathematicians of all ages have found in it a
mysterious attraction impossible to resist.-Hardy
There is an interesting story behind the above quote typically attributed to Erdős. Although this statement has since entered mathematical folklore, according to Carl Pomerance it is something witty that Erdős might have said in response to Einstein after his co-discovery of the Erdős-Kac law.