Quote:
Originally Posted by Madam Broshkina
The First 100,000 Prime Numbers is a great book. I could not put it down. It started kind of slow but it really got going in the middle part of the book. The ending made me wanting more.
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The ending is indeed impressive. The book concludes, magnificently, triumphantly, with a pair of primes: 1318697 and 1318699.
It took some cunning to produce this result. The book begins apologetically with “[1 is not a prime by many definitions of prime]” and then provides the list, beginning with 1. If the list began with 2, the ending would be ruined.
An alternative solution would have been to start with 2 and call the book
The First 99,999 Prime Numbers but this lacks the panache of the book’s actual title.