Colin R. Fletcher

Two Prime Centenaries: A Number Theorem and a Miscarriage of Justice

The prime numbers are often called the building blocks of number theory, a classic case of a ‘ sine qua non ’. If the corpus of the theory of numbers is looked upon as an architectural pile then the primes will be found amongst its foundations, and amongst its walls and buttresses, and indeed amongst the array of pinnacles and turrets which burst forth from it and stand proud, alone and magnificent. One such pinnacle had been discussed and planned for a hundred years before it was finally constructed in 1896 by two men working totally independently of each other (collapse of stout analogy). With this achievement, the prime numbers, those familiar yet raw beasts of mathematics, in one sense had been tamed. The long journey, which had begun with the tentative definitions of the ancient Greeks, was completed.