16 Jan 2020

Former Francistown nominated councillor, Mr Zazambi Tuelo has taken an unusual step by writing a thesis debunking prime numbers and contribute to the knowledge economy.

In an interview with BOPA recently, Mr Tuelo said that he was hopeful that his self-sponsored research document titled: Ending the prime numbers mystery, would bring much more understanding of prime numbers, beyond their definition and listing.He said what put him in the unusual field of studying numbers was inspired by the what he had learnt and was taught during his secondary school days.

“What we are usually offered pertaining to prime numbers in our primary and secondary schools is just basic information and often the numbers are just obscure,” he said.

He explained that after studying software engineering with Botho University in 2012, he discovered that there was need to understand more than just the definition of prime numbers.

For seven years now, the 33-year-old said he believed he had made a number of achievements in the field of learning numbers and had managed to close a gap in the field.

He said, ‘Ending the prime numbers mystery’, tries to explain why a prime number is the way it is and how it occurs and how it manages to continue existing with other numbers.

Mr Tuelo further said his research did not change the mathematical definition of a prime number, which outlines that prime numbers are natural whole numbers greater than one with exactly two factors.

However, his research tries to answer and explain how numbers gain factors, why and how numbers without factors like prime numbers occur and why prime numbers greater than three all next to multiples of six.

“I have written and tried to communicate with the broader Maths world in this thesis because I am not a professional mathematician but just happen to be studying numbers,” he noted.

The Marobela man said prime numbers were at the core of our daily lives, adding that anything one can think of, which is of importance that deals with computer security, was basically made of prime numbers.

He said as the nation was forging ahead with improvements in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), understanding prime numbers would also help people understand how effective they are in protecting information.

He further said if people understood prime numbers, it would also help them know what it is they were using and how vulnerable or secure it was.

“If we know and understand the vulnerability of our numbers, we can also be able to bring in new means of how to further secure our systems,” he added.

Mr Tuelo said carrying out the research was an exciting thing for him as he made a few discoveries pertaining to prime numbers. 

This, he highlighted, would help people look at the numbers in a broader version of understanding their occurrence and importance.

However, he said that the research is a challenging exercise as he had to deal with a lot of information in order to end up with something which can make sense to the consumers of the final product. Some of the challenges he faced included having to deal with limited resources and outdated information.

However, he noted that challenges were also beneficial as they presented opportunities to probe issues further in the quest to educate and inform the nation.

Mr Tuelo said he had submitted his research thesis to some of the learning institutions around the country and that he was ready to present and defend his findings if given the platform. 

He said that he was hopeful the research was the starting point for a much wider field of understanding and probably improving the academic and professional lives of Batswana. ENDS