Prime Number Quotes

I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

He treated Root exactly as he treated prime numbers. For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world

People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. . . . Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

She hadn't chosen him over all the others. The truth was that she hadn't even thought about anyone else.

You'll get used to it. In the end you won't even notice it anymore," he said. "How is that possible? It will always be there, right before my eyes." "Exactly," said Mattia. "Which is precisely why you won't see it anymore.

She was tired, with that tiredness that only emptiness brings.

They lived the slow and invisible interpenetration of their universes, like two stars gravitating around a common axis, in ever tighter orbits, whose clear destiny is to coalesce at some point in space and time.

I've got a few ideas," (Amy) admitted. "But I don't know where we're going in the long term. I mean - have you ever thought about what this ultimate treasure could be?" "Something cool." (Dan) "Oh, that's real helpful. I mean, what could make somebody the most powerful Cahill in history? And why thirty-nine clues?" Dan shrugged. "Thirty-nine is a sweet number. It's thirteen times three. It's also the sum of five prime numbers in a row - 3,5,7,11,13. And if you add the first three powers of three, 3 to the first, 3 to the second, and s to the third, you get thirty-nine." Amy stared at him. "How did you know that?" "What do you mean? It's obvious.

Anyway, then it said on the news, 'And tonight the Prime Minister has just got to Number Ten.' I looked down at Jas and said, 'Ooer.' Meaning he'd got to number ten on the snogging scale. And then we both laughed like loons. Vati just looked at us like we were mad.

In fact, they didn't talk much at all, but they spent time together, each in his own abyss, held safe and tight by the other's silence.

Twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.

Even though he was afraid to admit it, when he was with her it seemed it was worth doing all those normal things that normal people do.

Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other.

Shepherd Book: What are we up to, sweetheart? River: Fixing your Bible. Book: I, um... What? River: Bible's broken. Contradictions, false logistics - doesn't make sense. Shepherd Book: No, no. You-you-you can't... River: So we'll integrate non-progressional evolution theory with God's creation of Eden. Eleven inherent metaphoric parallels already there. Eleven. Important number. Prime number. One goes into the house of eleven eleven times, but always comes out one. Noah's ark is a problem. Shepherd Book: Really? River: We'll have to call it early quantum state phenomenon. Only way to fit 5000 species of mammal on the same boat. Shepherd Book: River, you don't fix the Bible. River: It's broken. It doesn't make sense. Book: It's not about making sense. It's about believing in something, and letting that belief be real enough to change your life. It's about faith. You don't fix faith, River. It fixes you.

His scars were hidden and safe in her hand.

I'll tell you once, and I'll tell you again. There's always a prime between n and 2n.

Prime numbers are divisible only by 1 and by themselves. They hold their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed, like all numbers, between two others, but one step further than the rest. They are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they'd been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other times he suspected that they too would have preferred to be like all others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn't do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies.

In the end it happens, in some way you couldn't imagine before.

It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing.

Time blossomed, matter shrank away. The highest prime number coalesced quietly in a corner and hid itself away for ever.

Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly. There is a common conviction among mathematicians that however far you go, there will always be another two, even if no one can say where exactly, until they are discovered. Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other. He had never told her that. When he imagined confessing these things to her, the thin layer of sweat on his hands evaporated completely and for a good ten minutes he was no longer capable of touching anything.

He opened his mouth to reply that feeling special is the worst kind of cage that a person can build for himself, but he didn't say anything.

When one made love to zero spheres embraced their arches and prime numbers caught their breath...

Do you really like studying?" Mattia nodded. "Why?" "It's the only thing I know how to do," he said shortly. He wanted to tell her that he liked studying because you can do it alone, because all the things you study are already dead, cold, and chewed over. He wanted to tell her that the pages of the schoolbooks were all the same temperature, that they left you time to choose, that they never hurt you and you couldn't hurt them either. But he said nothing.

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old Time is still a-flying; And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying. The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun, The higher he’s a-getting, The sooner will his race be run, And nearer he is to setting. That age is best which is the first, When youth and blood are warmer; But being spent, the worse, and worst Times still succeed the former. Then be not coy, but use your time, And while you may, go marry; For having lost but once your prime, You may for ever tarry. - To the Virgins, To Make much of Time

I could solve all the Diophantine equations, extend Newton’s work on infinite series, complete Euler's analysis of prime numbers, and it wouldn’t matter.” She looked at Isabelle. “Ella is the beauty. You and I are the ugly stepsisters. And so the world reduces us, all three of us, to our lowest common denominator.

but his eyes were too dark for her to make out any spark in them

Slim and neatly groomed, he looked like a really sexy mathematician unaware that he was a prime number. I wanted to unbutton his shirt, muss his hair, and exclaim, "Good heavens, Professor Dracula, you're stunning!

With a little effort, she could get up by herself.

Numbers are everywhere," said Denis. "They're always the same, aren't they?" "Yes." "But Alice is only here." "Yes." "So you've already made up your mind.

The South is a strange place, one that can't be fit inside a movie, a place that dares you to simplify it, like a prime number, like a Bible story, like my father.

...finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.

She found herself thinking of how it would feel to be safely trapped in his arms, with no more possibility to choose.

The scene was set. All that was required was an action, a cold start, instant and brutal as beginnings always are.

Denis's love for Mattia had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent.

she and Mattia were united by an invisible, elastic thread, buried under a pile of meaningless things, a thread that could exist only between two people like themselves: two people who had acknowledged their own solitude within the other.

Prime numbers are useful for writing codes and in America they are classed as Military Material and if you find one over 100 digits you have to tell the CIA and they buy it off you for $10,000. But it would not be a very good way of making a living.

Separating them were two layers of brick, a few inches of plaster, and nine years of silence.

On a plaque attached to the NASA deep space probe we [human beings] are described in symbols for the benefit of any aliens who might meet the spacecraft as “bilaterly symmetrical, sexually differentiated bipeds, located on one of the outer spiral arms of the Milky Way, capable of recognising the prime numbers and moved by one extraordinary quality that lasts longer than all our other urges—curiosity.

Why did you choose to stay here?" (...) "I don't know," he said. "It's as if there's more oxygen here.

Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.

The rule for working out prime numbers is very simple, but no one has ever worked out a simple formula for telling you whether a very big number is a prime number or what the next one will be. […] Prime numbers is what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

Las decisiones se toman en unos segundos y se pagan el resto de la vida.

I tell you, with complex numbers you can do anything.

All Mattia saw was a shadow moving toward him. He instinctively closed his eyes and then felt Alice’s hot mouth on his, her tears on his cheek, or maybe they weren’t hers, and finally her hands, so light, holding his head still and catching all his thoughts and imprisoning them there, in the space that no longer existed between them.

C'era stata quella volta e ce n'erano state infinite altre, che Alice non ricordava più, perché l'amore di chi non amiamo si deposita sulla superficie e da lì evapora in fretta.

Some numbers, even large ones, have no factors - except themselves, of course, and 1. These are called prime numbers, because everything they are starts with themselves. They are original, gnarled, unpredictable, the freaks of the number world.

The mathematical order is beautiful precisely because it has no effect on the real world. Life isn't going to be easier, not is anyone going to make a fortune, just because they know something about prime numbers.

She remembered lying in the crevasse, buried by snow. She thought of that perfect silence. Also now, like then, no one knew where she was. This time too, no one would come. But she no longer expected them to. She smiled at the clear sky. With a little effort, she could get up by herself.

prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.

There had been that time and there had been an infinite number of others, which Alice no longer remembered, because the love of those we don't love in return settles on the surface and from there quickly evaporates.

Maybe people like you and me are just prime numbers. We don't neatly divide into a world that demands order. And they keep trying to find out why, and what makes us the way we are, but they can't.

إن شعور المرء بكونه مميزا هو أسوأ أنواع الأقفاص التى يمكن للمرء أن يبنيه.

Porque estaban unidos por un hilo invisible, oculto entre mil cosas de poca importancia, que sólo podía existir entre dos personas como ellos: dos soledades que se reconocían.

Then he realized it was the most natural thing in the world, which was precisely why he was incapable of it.

We drove around for half an hour in search of two free parking spaces because you couldn't get into a single one," he said, to banish those thoughts. "It was just an excuse to keep you with me," Alice replied. "But you never understood anything.

Por primera vez sintió que la inmensa distancia que los separaba era insignificante. Estaba convencida de que él seguía en el mismo sitio, donde ya le había escrito algunas veces, muchos años antes. Porque estaban unidos por un hilo invisible, oculto entre mil cosas de poca importancia, que sólo podía existir entre dos personas como ellos: dos soledades que se reconocían.

Se había atado a él con la obstinación con que uno se ata a las cosas que lo perjudican.

Alleen en verloren, vlak bij elkaar, maar niet dicht genoeg om elkaar echt te raken.

Those nights when the future seemed to last only till the morning and he would count off the hours, one by one, by the chimes of distant church bells.

If we couldn't see anything outside the car, if we didn't know we were moving, there would be no way of telling whether it was the raindrops' fault or our own.

No, what she had in front of her was a grown-up person who had built a life around a terrifying abyss, on terrain that had already collapsed, and yet who had succeeded, far away from here, among people Alice didn't know.

I’m not sure what prime numbers have to do with anything,” I say in a gentle voice. “Prime numbers have to do with everything. But to clarify, that’s what I imagine falling in love is like and then staying married. You start out as low twin primes and as time goes on, if you manage to defy the statistical odds and not get divorced, you become like those rarer twin primes, still only separated by two. That’s an amazing feat.” “How romantic

She emptied herself of Fabio and of herself, of all the useless efforts she had made to get where she was and find nothing there. With detached curiosity she observed the rebirth of her weaknesses, her obsessions. This time she would let them decide, since she hadn't been able to do anything anyway. Against certain parts of yourself you remain powerless, she said to herself, as she regressed pleasurably to the time when she was a girl.

... perché sapeva che Mattia parlava poco ma, quando lo faceva, valeva la pena di stare zitti e ascoltare.

Hij deed zijn mond open om te antwoorden dat je speciaal voelen de ergste kooi is die je om je heen kunt bouwen, maar hij zei niets.

It was another of the things he had left behind, another obvious step in a boy's life that he had decided not to take, so as to stay as far as possible from the machinery of life.

She couldn't remember what they had talked about, only that she had looked at her rapt from a place just behind her eyes, a place full of jumbled thoughts that she had kept to herself even then.

Mattia thought there was nothing good about having his mind. That he would happily have unscrewed it and replaced it with a different one, or even with a package of biscotti, provided it was empty and light. He opened his mouth to reply that feeling special is the worst kind of cage that a person can build for himself, but he didn't say anything.

When she opened her eyes the sky was still there, with its monotonous and brilliant blue. Not a cloud passed across it.

this meant he had reached the end of the track that he had blindly followed from the first year of primary school to graduation.

He was dressed anonymously and had the posture of someone who doesn't know how to occupy the space of his own body.

Ci si può ammalare anche solo di un ricordo, e lei era ammalata.

It was like being wrapped in a sheet, all white, nothing but white, above, below, all around you. It was the exact opposite of darkness, but it frightened Alice in precisely the same way.

Mattia was right: the days had slipped over her skin like a solvent, one after the other, each removing a very thin layer of pigment from her tattoo, and from both of their memories. The outlines, like the circumstances, were still there, black and well delineated, but the colors had merged together until they faded into a dull, uniform tonality, a neutral absence of meaning.

Hence 8197. He liked 97 because it was the largest two-digit prime number, and he loved 81 because it was absolutely the only number out of all the literally infinite possibilities whose square root was also the sum of its digits. Square root of eighty-one was nine, and eight and one made nine. No other nontrivial number in the cosmos had that kind of sweet symmetry. Perfect.

He collected the stories of people like himself, mostly keeping silent and listening. He slowly discovered that the stories were similar, that there was a process, and that the process involved immersion, putting your whole head under until you touched the bottom and only then coming up for air.

The nature of a letter can also be revealed within its numeric value. All letters and numbers behave in a certain but recognizable way, from which we can deduce its nature. The number two is the only even prime. There is an inherent mathematical dilemma with, “one.” No matter how many times you multiply it, by itself, you still can’t get past “one” (1 x 1 x 1 x 1 = 1). So, how does “one” move beyond itself? How does the same, produce the different? Mathematically, “one” is forced to divide itself and work from that duality. Therein, hides the divine puzzle of bet (b). To become “two,” the second must revolt from wholeness—a separation. Yet, the second could not have existed without the benefit of the original wholeness. Also, the first wanted the second to exist, but the first doesn’t know what the second will become. Again, two contains potential badness, to a Hebrew. (Ge 25:24)

For Alice and Mattia, the high school years were an open wound that had seemed so deep that it could never heal. They had passed through them without breathing, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and eventually they had noticed that it didn't make all that much difference. They had formed a defective and asymmetrical friendship, made up of long absences and much silence, a clean and empty space where both could come back to breathe when the walls of their school became too close for them to ignore the feeling of suffocation.

By now he had learned. Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains. It had happened with Michela and then with Alice and again now. He recognized them this time: those seconds were there, and he would never make a mistake again.

-Pero no quiero verlo más. -Te acostumbrarás, al final ni repararás en él. -¿Y cómo, si lo tendré siempre a la vista? -Por eso, por eso mismo dejarás de verlo.

They had passed through them in a state of apnoea, he rejecting the world and she feeling rejected by it, and they had noticed that it didn’t make a big difference.

الناس يكتسبون الثقة بالنفس كلما تقدموا فى السن.

How she longed for the uninhibitedness of kids her age, their vacuous sense of immortality.

She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it using only his thumb and index finger. Alice thought there was nothing special in the gesture, that she could have done it herself, like anyone else, if only her hands hadn't been so sweaty. And yet she found it strangely fascinating, like a small heroic feat performed specially for her.

Había aprendido a respetar el abismo que Mattia se había excavado alrededor. Años atrás quiso saltarlo y se había despeñado. Ahora se conformaba con sentare en el borde y dejar colgar las piernas.

Prime numbers are divisible only by 1 and by themselves. They hold their place in the infinite series of natural numbers, squashed, like all numbers, between two others, but one step further than the rest. They are suspicious, solitary numbers, which is why Mattia thought they were wonderful. Sometimes he thought that they had ended up in that sequence by mistake, that they'd been trapped, like pearls strung on a necklace. Other times he suspected that they too would have preferred to be like all the others, just ordinary numbers, but for some reason they couldn't do it. This second thought struck him mostly at night, in the chaotic interweaving of images that comes before sleep, when the mind is too weak to tell itself lies. In his first year at university, Mattia had learned that, among prime numbers, there are some that are even more special. Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you're about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly. There is a common conviction among mathematicians that however far you go, there will always be another two, even if no one can say where exactly, until they are discovered.

In a great number of the cosmogonic myths the world is said to have developed from a great water, which was the prime matter. In many cases, as for instance in an Indian myth, this prime matter is indicated as a solution, out of which the solid earth crystallized out.

To be an engineer, and build a marvelous machine, and to see the beauty of its operation is as valid an experience of beauty as a mathematician's absorption in a wondrous theorem. One is not "more" beautiful than the other. To see a space shuttle standing on the launch pad, the vented gases escaping, and witness the thunderous blast-off as it climbs heavenward on a pillar of flame - this is beauty. Yet it is a prime example of applied mathematics.

With photography Alice liked the actions more than the results. She liked opening the back of the camera and unrolling the new film a couple of inches, just enough to catch it in the runner, and thinking that this empty film would soon become something and not knowing what, taking the first few snaps into the void, aiming, focusing, checking her balance, deciding whether to include or exclude pieces of reality as she saw fit, enlarging, distorting.

Every time she heard the click of the shutter, followed by that faint rustle, she remembered when she used to catch grasshoppers in the garden of their house in the mountains when she was a little girl, trapping them between her cupped hands. She thought that it was the same with photographs, only now she seized time and fixed it on celluloid, capturing it halfway through its jump toward the next moment.

What are you saying?” “I want to try.” He wanted clarification on that. “You want to try what?” There it was, that deep flush. “You know.” Yes, he knew, but he wasn’t going to let her off the hook so easily. She was going to be his. For a brief time, she would belong to him and he would have everything he wanted, and he wanted her to start talking dirty. Yes. He wanted to teach her, to train her to accept pleasure so she would expect it. “No, I don’t know. You’ll have to be plain.” Avery blushed a little. “I want to be intimate with you.” So sweet. So polite. So not happening. “That sounds like you want me to get into my pajamas and exchange secrets with you. I’m not your girlfriend, Avery. Tell me what you want. That’s lesson number one. Communication and honesty are the keys to the relationship I want. I need to hear you say plainly what you want.” She hesitated, but only for a moment. He wasn’t surprised. Deep in her heart, she was a brave girl. She’d faced so much and still was open with her heart. Damn, but he didn’t understand that. “I would like for us to sleep together.” “I’m not very sleepy.” He wasn’t going to let her get away with anything. She groaned a little in obvious frustration. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.” “Yes. I do. So say what you want.” “I want to have sex.” “So clinical. I’ll have to think about that.” “I want to make love.” “Sweet, but not what I’m looking for.” Her face crinkled into the cutest pout. “Damn it, Lee. I want to fuck.” Just like that he was primed and ready. She’d said fuck with such a sweet little heat, her eyebrows forming a V over her face as though the entire incident had offended her polite sensibilities. She would learn there wasn’t room for politeness between them. He growled just a little. “I want to fuck, too, baby. I want to fuck all night long.

I numeri primi sono divisibili soltanto per 1 e per se stessi.Se ne stanno al loro posto nell'infinita serie dei numeri naturali,schiacciati come tutti fra due, ma un passo in là rispetto agli altri.Sono numeri sospettosi e solitari e per questo Mattia li trovava meravigliosi.Certe volte pensava che in quella sequenza ci fossero finiti per sbaglio,che vi fossero rimasti intrappolati come perline infilate in una collana.Altre volte,invece,sospettava che anche a loro sarebbe piaciuto essere come tutti,solo dei numeri qualunque,ma che per qualche motivo non ne fossero capaci.Il secondo pensiero lo sfiorava soprattutto di sera, nell'intrecciarsi caotico di immagini che precede il sonno,quando la mente è troppo debole per raccontarsi delle bugie.

Putin isn’t a full-blown Fascist because he hasn’t felt the need. Instead, as prime minister and president, he has flipped through Stalin’s copy of the totalitarian playbook and underlined passages of interest to call on when convenient. Throughout his time in office, he has stockpiled power at the expense of provincial governors, the legislature, the courts, the private sector, and the press. A suspicious number of those who have found fault with him have later been jailed on dubious charges or murdered in circumstances never explained. Authority within Putin’s “vertical state”—including directorship of the national oil and gas companies—is concentrated among KGB alumni and other former security and intelligence officials. A network of state-run corporations and banks, many with shady connections offshore, furnish financial lubricants for pet projects and privileged friends. Rather than diversify as China has done, the state has more than doubled its share of the national economy since 2005.

Se si ha la pazienza di andare avanti a contare, si scopre che queste coppie via via si diradano.Ci si imbatte in numeri primi sempre più isolati,smarriti in quello spazio silenzioso e cadenzato fatto solo di cifre e si avverte il presentimento angosciante che le coppie incontrate fino a lì fossero un fatto accidentale,che il vero destino sia quello di rimanere soli.Poi,proprio quando ci si sta per arrendere,quando non si ha più voglia di contare, ecco che ci si imbatte in altri due gemelli, avvinghiati stretti l'uno all'altro. [...] Mattia pensava che lui e Alice erano così,due primi gemelli,soli e perduti,vicini ma non abbastanza per sfiorarsi davvero.

I work at T-Town, which is about ninety-nine percent men, and all of them either are alpha personalities or think they are. That said, what we have here is the standard dynamic for sexual tension. I'm moderately good-looking. I have big boobs, and I get hit on by everyone from the pastor of my church to baristas at Starbucks, and by every single guy at T-Town except for my boss and the range master. I don't blame them and I don't judge them. It's part of the procreative drive hardwired into us, and we haven't evolved as a species far enough exert any genuine control over the biological imperative. You, on the other hand, are a very good-looking man of prime breeding age. Old enough to have interesting lines and scars--and stories to go with them--and young enough to be a catch. You probably get laid as often as you want to, and you can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times women have said no to you. Maybe--and please correct me if I've strayed too far into speculation--being an agent of a secret government organization has led you to buy into the superspy sex stud propaganda perpetuated by James Bond films." "My name is Powers," I said. "Austin Powers." She ignored me and plowed ahead. "We're in the middle of a crisis. We may have to work closely together for several days, or even several weeks. Close-quarters travel, emotions running high, all that. If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not spend the next few days living inside a trite office romance cliche. That includes everything from mild flirtation to sexual innuendo and double entendre and the whole ball of wax." She sipped her Coke. The ball landed in my court with a thump.

I numeri primi sono divisibili soltanto per 1 e per sè stessi. Se ne stanno al loro posto nell’infinita serie dei numeri naturali, schiacciati come tutti fra due, ma un passo in là rispetto agli altri. Sono numeri sospettosi e solitari e per questo Mattia li trovava meravigliosi. Certe volte pensava che in quella sequenza ci fossero finiti per sbaglio, che vi fossero rimasti intrappolati come perline infilate in una collana. Altre volte, invece, sospettava che anche a loro sarebbe piaciuto essere come tutti, solo dei numeri qualunque, ma che per qualche motivo non ne fossero capaci.In un corso del primo anno Mattia aveva studiato che tra i numeri primi ce ne sono alcuni ancora più speciali. I matematici li chiamano primi gemelli: sono coppie di numeri primi che se ne stanno vicini,anzi,quasi vicini, perchè fra di loro vi è sempre un numero pari che gli impedisce di toccarsi per davvero. Numeri come l’11 e il 13, come il 17 e il 19, il 41 e il 43. Se si ha la pazienza di andare avanti a contare, si scopre che queste coppie via via si diradano. ci si imbatte in numeri primi sempre più isolati, smarriti in quello spazio silenzioso e cadenzato fatto solo di cifre e si avverte il presentimento angosciante che le coppie incontrate fino a lì fossero un fatto accidentale, che il vero destino sia quello di rimanere soli.Poi, proprio quando ci si sta per arrendere, quando non si ha più voglia di contare, ecco che ci si imbatte in altri due gemelli, avvinghiati stretti l’uno all’altro. Tra i matematici è convinzione comune che per quanto si possa andare avanti, ve ne saranno sempre altri due, anche se nessuno può dire dove, finchè non li si scopre. Mattia pensava che lui e Alice erano così, due primi gemelli, soli e perduti, vicini ma non abbastanza per sfiorarsi davvero.

PEACETIME CEO/WARTIME CEO Peacetime CEO knows that proper protocol leads to winning. Wartime CEO violates protocol in order to win. Peacetime CEO focuses on the big picture and empowers her people to make detailed decisions. Wartime CEO cares about a speck of dust on a gnat’s ass if it interferes with the prime directive. Peacetime CEO builds scalable, high-volume recruiting machines. Wartime CEO does that, but also builds HR organizations that can execute layoffs. Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture. Peacetime CEO always has a contingency plan. Wartime CEO knows that sometimes you gotta roll a hard six. Peacetime CEO knows what to do with a big advantage. Wartime CEO is paranoid. Peacetime CEO strives not to use profanity. Wartime CEO sometimes uses profanity purposefully. Peacetime CEO thinks of the competition as other ships in a big ocean that may never engage. Wartime CEO thinks the competition is sneaking into her house and trying to kidnap her children. Peacetime CEO aims to expand the market. Wartime CEO aims to win the market. Peacetime CEO strives to tolerate deviations from the plan when coupled with effort and creativity. Wartime CEO is completely intolerant. Peacetime CEO does not raise her voice. Wartime CEO rarely speaks in a normal tone. Peacetime CEO works to minimize conflict. Wartime CEO heightens the contradictions. Peacetime CEO strives for broad-based buy-in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus building nor tolerates disagreements. Peacetime CEO sets big, hairy, audacious goals. Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand. Peacetime CEO trains her employees to ensure satisfaction and career development. Wartime CEO trains her employees so they don’t get their asses shot off in the battle. Peacetime CEO has rules like “We’re going to exit all businesses where we’re not number one or two.” Wartime CEO often has no businesses that are number one or two and therefore does not have the luxury of following that rule.