Monday Open Thread: March 18 is Goldbach's birthday

March 18 is the 81st day of the Gregorian Calendar year Boomtime, Discord 4, 3185 YOLD  (discordian) And let us not forget 13.0.6.5.18 by the Mayan Long Count "Every even integer n greater than two is the sum of two primes". An unproven conjecture that has spawned many others. The great "open problem" in math. I've used this clip once before, "but such is life", as the man said. (Bushranger Ned Kelly, upon the Gallows)

So that references the prime number theorem, and if you'd like a refresher on that, here are a couple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8ezziaEeNE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKfdRks8oMI , or you could simply accept that the number of primes less than some number x is ballpark equivalent to x/ln(x). Alternatively, of the first x integers, about 1/ln(x) will be prime, or, the probability that any number less than x is prime is roughly 1/ln(x). Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift, look out kid, ...  

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On this day in history: 0037 – The Roman Senate tossed out Tiberius' will and made Caligula emperor. Smooth move, idiota.. 1834 – Six people from Tolpuddle, England were exiled to Australia for forming a trade union. 1871 – The Paris Commune began. 1922 – Mohandas Gandhi was sentenced to six years in prison for civil disobedience. 1938 – Mexico expropriated all foreign-owned oil reserves and facilities and made them into Pemex. 1942 – The War Relocation Authority (WRA) was created to send Japanese Americans to concentration camps. 1959 – Hawaii was made a state. Aloha 1965 – Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, became the first person to walk in space. 1970 – US backed Lon Nol, a brutal dictator, ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. Bookends with Caligula Born this day in: 1690 – Christian Goldbach, mathematician, famous for what he coldn't prove 1844 – Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, bot, composer 1846 – Kicking Bear, tribal leader, fought at the Battle of the Greasy Grass 1848 – Nathanael Greene Herreshoff, naval architect and engineer 1858 – Rudolf Diesel, engineer 1922 – Seymour Martin Lipset, sociologist 1927 – George Plimpton, journalist 1932 – John Updike, writer 1934 – Charley Pride, country singer and musician 1941 – Wilson Pickett, singer and songwriter 1943 – Dennis Linde, singer and songwriter 1947 – B. J. Wilson, drummer 1951 – Bill Frisell, guitarist and composer 1952 – Will Durst, journalist and actor 1963 – Vanessa L. Williams, model, actress and singer. First black Miss America. 1964 – Courtney Pine, sax and clarinet player Died this day in: 1956 – Louis Bromfield, environmentalist and author 1978 – Leigh Brackett, author and screenwriter 1980 – Erich Fromm, psychologist and philosopher 1988 – Billy Butterfield, trumpet and cornet player 2001 – John Phillips, singer, songwriter and guitarist 2003 – Adam Osborne, engineer and businessman 2017 – Chuck Berry, singer, songwriter and guitarist  

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Holidays, Holy Days, Festivals, Feast Days, Days of Recognition, and such: Transit Driver Appreciation Day  

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Music goes here, iirc, well,

Rimsky-Korsakov bot

Charley Pride

Wilson Pickett

Dennis Linde

B. J. Wilson

Bill Frisell

Vanessa Williams

Courtney Pine

Billy Butterfield

John Phillips

Chuck Berry

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Image is Goldbach Comet by no_typographic_man (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/ It's an open thread, so do your thing Cross posted from http://caucus99percent.com