[ October 8, 2002 ]
Literary Primes
Enoch Haga (email)

Think of a number – will it be prime ?
It is easy to come up with 2 or 3 or maybe even 5; 7 is notorious,
but what about higher primes. Are there writers who have
a seemingly uncanny predilection for prime numbers ?

You may know that Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) is one of our greatest
writers, and his book, Huck Finn, is considered a masterpiece. This is the
adventure story of Huck Finn and a runaway slave rafting down the
Mississippi; it is full of the dialect of the times.

The manuscript of half of the book was lost for many years and was only
recently discovered (1990). This prompted a new edition containing portions
left out of the original.

[New York: Fawcett Columbine (First Ballantine Books Trade Edition, 1997),
ISBN 0-449-91272-8]

I bought the book to read for recreation. I was immediately struck by a
curiousity in the dialogue. It is peppered with numerical references -- and
almost invariably these contain low-value prime numbers, including for
example 37.

This seems more than a coincidence, so I jotted down most of the page
numbers and numerical dialogue.

Notice also a suggestion that Twain is kind of jerking toward a progression
from low to higher prime numbers: 11 to 37!

It may be interesting to note that Huck Finn has 43 chapters.
A curiosity is that Chapter 43 is the only one not numbered !

This brings up the question, are there other literary works containing
frequent offhand references to numbers that happen to be prime ?

[ May 20, 2003 ]
Enoch Haga hasn't finished reading The Lord of the Rings,
an astonishing and scholarly work of literature, but...
he noticed a number of references to primes in various
TV movies and programs. Unfortunately he's not always
fast enough to get the documentation.
Here are some that might possibly go with this WONplate:

[Source: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (Boston, New York: Houghton
Mifflin Company, edition first published in Great Britain by
HarperCollinsPublishers, 1994). ISBN 0-618-26024-2; ISBN 0-618-26025-0.]

I haven't thoroughly explored this monumental work, but
should I find more examples, I'll send them in.

[ May 22 & 23, 2003 ]
Enoch Haga continues the literary prime saga:

In Thomas Mann's magnificent symphonic novel of time and place set in
pre-Great War Switzerland, Hans Castorp visits his cousin in a sanatorium.
Intending to stay for  three  weeks, he himself is confined for  seven  years!

While these are not spectacular primes, Mann could have chosen other numbers.
Mann himself remarks (Page 706) :
" Seven  years Hans Castorp remained amongst those up here.
Partisans of the decimal system might prefer a round number, though  seven 
is a good handy figure in its way, picturesque, with a savour of the mythical,
one might even say that it is more filling to the spirit than a dull academic
half-dozen. Our hero had sat at all  seven  of the tables in the dining-room . . ."

[Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg), Translated from the
German by H. T. Lowe-Porter, (New York: Vintage Books edition, March 1969).
Originally published by S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin, 1924.]

His book is divided into 7 chapters divided into 51 parts. Two of these parts
have numerical titles: In Chapter I, Number 34, page 10; and in Chapter VII,
Vingt et Un, page 556. Also, in Chapter VII, there are three parts about
Mynheer Peeperkorn, the first part followed by Vingt et Un. If these extra
parts are combined, there remain 7 squared or 49 parts. This is the only
such instance of continued parts.

[ May 25, 2003 ]
Enoch Haga finally managed to see an old movie on TV
as well as jot down the prime data mentioned:

In "The Big Lift," a 1950 film featuring many of the actual pilots and crews
who flew the Berlin Airlift, as well as film stars Montgomery Clift and Paul
Douglas, we see that the planes flying out of Rhein-Main and landing at
Tempelhof had numbers. Clift's plane was #37, and in the film
it is celebrated as the plane completing the 100,000 flight
into Berlin. This plane, originating in the 19th Troop Carrier
Squadron, Honolulu, was later assigned to the 53th Troop
Carrier Squadron. In the drama woven into the story, Montgomery late
in the film flies into Berlin on plane #107. Four primes here!

That reminds me that during the Korean War, two years after the Berlin
Airlift, I was assigned as a supply sergeant to the 5th Air Force, 452nd Light
Bombardment Group, later reconstituted the 17th. Two primes here.

[ February 25, 2004 ]
Enoch Haga saw this one evening while wasting time on TV

The Nickelodeon cartoon character SpongeBob remarks that he has taken the
boating test 37 times, then corrects it to 38. Obviously his spongy body has
soaked up primes -- but at least 38 is 2 * 19, so he is thinking straight!