Talk:Sophie Germain prime
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With good intentions, a couple of anonymous users added some redundant passages to the article, repeating some definitions with extremely similar wording. The paragraphs they added on Sophie Germain herself are relevant but make more sense in the article on Sophie Germain. These edits resulted in an article that looked very incoherent. I'm not inclined to question their paragraph on the largest known Sophie Germain prime, but in the interest of detangling the rest of what they wrote I have also taken it out. PrimeFan 15:39, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
- I see it less kindly. Their additions were cut and pasted from Mathworld and other websites, and reworded just barely enough to avoid a red flag from plagiarism detection software. Anton Mravcek 21:10, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
[edit] The proof of Proof was about Sophie Germain primes?
The current version of the article says that:
- Sophie Germain primes were the subject of the eponymous proof in the stage play Proof and the subsequent film Proof.
That comes as a surprise to me. I watched the film once, I recall Gwyneth Paltrow's character quoting a large Sophie Germain prime during the party at her house, but I don't recall anything that explicitly said that's what the proof was about. Later on Hal describes it as proving something that people've been trying to prove for centuries, but he doesn't any more detail than this. In general, the movie is not so much about any particular mathematical concept as it is about the psychology of an old math genius and his daughter. PrimeFan 21:45, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
- The film script is at http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/p/proof-script-transcript-paltrow-auburn.html. It mentions Sophie Germain primes and later says the proof is about prime numbers, without mentioning SG primes. Mathematically (which may be a poor viewpoint to make speculations about films), it doesn't sound likely to me that the proof should be about SG primes which just aren't important enough, considering what the film script says:
Oh, it's a result, a proof. It looks like a proof. It is a proof. A very long proof. I haven't read through it all yet or checked it. I don't even know if I could check it. But if it's a proof of what I think it's a proof of, it's a very important proof.
What does it prove?
It looks like it proves a mathematical theorem about prime numbers which mathematicians have been trying to prove since there were mathematicians.
You know about this?
- Is it any good?
- It's historic, if it checks out.
What does it mean?
It means that when everybody thought your dad was crazy, he did some of the most important mathematics ever. If it checks out, it means you publish instantly. You hold press conferences. It means that all newspapers around the world are gonna want to talk to the person who found this notebook.
- http://www.theaterbarn.org/Page.asp?p=proofshowpage claims the play proof is about SG primes. I haven't seen a play script to confirm this. PrimeHunter 15:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
- i get a 404 errror trying to access taht website, so I'm gonna go ahead and delete that statement. Numerao (talk) 16:01, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
- actualy, now that I remeber, they were mentioned in the film. teh only things the dialogue indicates as to teh copntent of the proof is that it proves some longstanding open probem about primes and taht it uses some fairly recent theories to do so. Numerao (talk) 16:04, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
