The Music of the Primes

Released: 2010-04-13

Runtime: 60 minutes

Episode Overview

What are primes and how do they affect us? Trace the prime number theorem back through history, highlighting the work of some of the greatest mathematical minds along the way. From Euclid to Carl Friedrich Gauss, who at 15 years of age helped uncover some of the mysteries of the prime.

Series Overview

For more than 2,000 years, a mathematical riddle has baffled the world’s greatest minds. It’s a problem of such difficulty that it has tormented those brave enough to tackle it. Some have given up in despair. Others have been driven mad. Primes are fundamental to mathematics yet they seem to surface entirely randomly along the number line. But are the primes truly random or is there some hidden pattern? It’s the greatest unsolved problem of mathematics. In The Music of the Primes, Marcus du Sautoy investigates the fascinating story of great mathematicians who have all grappled with the problem of the primes