do the Hierogrammates care about the megatherians?

David Stockhoff · 23 May 2011, 00:04 · from 2011-May.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (David Stockhoff)
Date: Sun, 22 May 2011 20:04:01 -0400
Subject: (urth) do the Hierogrammates *care* about the megatherians?
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Thanks Jason, that's helpful. Since Wolfe is no Lewis Carroll, although 
he is a fan, I think this is enough to explain why he might have settled 
on 17 as an "answer" to 12.

I won't rule out more obscure explanations, although I will note that 
wikipedia mentions about a dozen different classes of prime numbers to 
which 17 belongs. I don't care about such things myself.

On 5/22/2011 7:40 PM, Jason H wrote:
>     From: David Stockhoff<dstockhoff at verizon.net 
> <mailto:dstockhoff at verizon.net>>
>
>     Depends how you look at it. There are patterns among primes that I
>     don't pretend to understand. But some primes may be rarer than
>     others.
>
>
>
> If I might briefly offer a mathematician's perspective... :)
>
> No single prime number is "rarer" than any others. (Although as 
> numbers get larger, one encounters primes more and more rarely.)
>
> I do think 17 has a significance over 13 and 19, but it's more 
> psychological than mathematical: 17 is probably the most 
> "generic"-seeming number under 20. Forget the even numbers. (They're 
> too obvious and well-behaved.) 11 is one more than 10, and 19 is one 
> less than 20; these are both "boundary" numbers. We have 13, 15 and 17 
> left. 13 is fraught with superstitious significance, of course, and 15 
> is a multiple of 5. That really leaves 17, the most "random" or 
> "generic" number under 20. Does this sound like numerology? Yes, but I 
> think it's really psychology.
>
> Similarly, if you ask someone to pick a number from 1 to 10, they 
> often pick 7.
>
> The following blog entry is relevant and interesting:
> http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/02/is_17_the_most_random_number.php
>
>
> -Jason
>
>
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