Dear Searchers and Seekers,

Today’s probably my favorite lesson of the year. We’re going to find all the prime numbers through 100 by using the sieve of Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes was a Greek scientist and mathematician from over 2000 years ago, but he knew things that people would have to relearn. He not only knew the earth was round, but he was able to measure its circumference within 2%. He also drew a map of the world, was a poet, a musician, and an athlete. He’s one of my personal heroes.

Eratosthenes’s sieve shows us the power of faithfully following a simple and clever method. Today, we have supercomputers that find insanely large prime numbers, but the work of creating a method and following it will never be replaced by computers.

Remember, math is the science of patterns. As we’re messing around with multiples, be on the lookout for the beautiful and intricate patterns that dance all through our amazing number system.

To the hunt (for primes),

Mr. Heimbuck