So, after a disasterous Japanese exam, the worst exam I've ever sat, I treated myself to a cold bottle of lager from Costcutters. Drinking as I went, I meandered to the maths department, morosely. When outside the CS dept, I passed Ian Stewart, mathematical raconteur par excellence. He looked from me, to the shameful bottle brazenly displayed outside, to my face again, a look of loathing in his face.

Today, the music of the primes has stopped.

Tomorrow I drink till I hear the music of the primes. That or pass out whichever happens first. I need to forget Algebra 2 and metric spaces. The worst will be over. That's cause for a celebration!

CJ, what can I say? I gather you put a lot into the Japanese module. You posted about it. That must have been a bit of a blow for you. Are you sure that, in a somewhat melancholic temper, you mightn't tend to misread an expression slightly, or to exaggerate things a little in your head? Whatever the case, I'm sure the music of the primes will return.

Ian Stewart didn't write the music of the primes, if that is what you were implying. It was Marcus du Sautoy.

No, I think you don't understand. As a student CJ condones (technically illegal) pubic alcoholism among people who have a home. If Ian Stewart frowns on student alcoholism, he frowns on my beliefs, I frown on him too!

Until he next runs a talk for the WMS...

Oh dear, sorry. Trust me to be too naive to the world of drinking to realise what you mean. That was tactless. I guess it doesn't help to be all sunny about it. Looks like you weren't mistaken, then. That sucks, doesn't it? One of those instances of life throwing you one shock followed by another. I still mean what I said about the music of the primes though.

The (literal) music of primes isn't something I'd want to be hearing all the time. :P

Hah, yeah, worse than speedcore :P

I have a fourth year friend at another university who did his final year project on "visualisations" of the primes. They actually got a pretty sweet (well, kinda) song out of the primes by taking the sequence of products of successive prime gaps, check it out (it's got a slideshow of Ulam spirals and stuff too) - http://youtube.com/watch?v=2×2W12A8Qow

Very cool.

It took my breath away first time I seen it, I had to move away from my PC so I could breathe

Stunning stuff

Yes. That transformation really kicks ass.

If you hadn't of put that I'd have clicked on the link you know. I'm gullible but paranoid.

Your loss.

I believe that the real music of the primes (for all primes up to 10 digits long) can be heard if you listen to the entirety of Kraftwerk's back catalogue...