Sir Isaac believed that God must make some personal adjustments from time to time to keep planets in their orbit. Most people do not know that Newton conducted secret experiments in alchemy, a capital offense for which people were executed in 18th century England. He was fascinated with the occult, a subject he explored in a million words written in his private notebooks. The history of mathematicians will intrigue young people. This person dedicated his professional life to exploring the fundamental theorem of arithmetic that involves prime numbers.
All numbers seem to be composed of certain other numbers called primes.
What fascinated Nickel and Noll was the notion that primes are a sort of DNA of all numbers. The two high school students were surprised that no pattern has yet been found to predict the highest prime ever discovered. They set out to find that number. After 2,000 hours of work and 44 computer tests, they found the elusive number which was confirmed by theoretical mathematicians at the University of California's Berkeley campus. If a student is to be wildly passionate about mathematics, the student must have the opportunity to experience the romance of mathematics.