My Submission to WIRED Magazine

WIRED magazine is a monthly periodical based in San Francisco that focuses primarily on technology, computers, and culture; although they also cover political and economic issues as well. WIRED began in 1993 and presently has a circulation of around 700,000 readers. Since they are heavily computer oriented, it would only make sense that they have a web presence, and they do with WIRED NEWS being the online version of the magazine (formerly called HOTWIRED), with one of its editors actually being a former hacker - Kevin Poulsen, whom I'll tell you more about later.

Two main characteristics stick out in my mind whenever I think of WIRED magazine: well-written articles on cutting-edge technology topics; and a bold hacker-noirish look due to the compelling visual style and layout of the magazine. Every time I pick up an issue of WIRED I know I'll soon be learning about a new ground-breaking technology that I hadn't heard of before while being entertained by cool images, which makes me feel excited, hopeful, and grateful to be alive.

One of the contributing writers to WIRED over the years has been science fiction author, Cory Doctorow. I first encountered Mr. Doctorow when he posted a comment on Boing Boing stating that he thought the title of my cyberpunk book, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk();} was "awesome." I received quite a few book sales from Mr. Doctorow's seal of approval and was flattered he mentioned my book on one of my all-time favorite web sites, Boing Boing. But my novel really didn't "take off" since it was too experimental for the masses (a large portion of the text was inspired by beat writer William Burroughs and his literary experiments, and the overall book had too much of a radical math-influenced hacker cyberpunk feel - oh yes it did).

Concerning Kevin Poulsen, the previously mentioned senior editor of WIRED NEWS, surely you're already familiar with his name, aren't you? (I first read about him in the book, Watchman: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Serial Hacker Kevin Poulsen, which quickly became one of my all-time favorite books.) Poulsen is one of the most brilliant hackers on the planet. He is a former black-hat hacker famous for when he took over every telephone line at KIIS-FM radio station in L.A. to ensure that he would be the winning caller of a brand new Porsche 944 S2 sports car. While that's probably his most well-known hack, my personal favorite of Poulsen's accomplishments is when he was featured on the Unsolved Mysteries television show and afterward, working from a clandestine location, crashed all the phone lines in the U.M. offices so that no one could call in and report his general whereabouts. HOW ABOUT THAT FOR A BRILLIANT HACK? HOLY HACKERAMA, BATMAN! THAT IS INTENSE!

But Mr. Poulsen's black hat hacker days are all behind him and in place of that interesting vocation he now focuses on journalism, starting his career with the SecurityFocus research firm and working his way up to WIRED NEWS. Poulsen still engages in some programming now and again, but it's all white hat work from here on out: he recently wrote a program to scour Myspace for known sex offenders which led to the arrest of one pedophile and also inspired the Myspace bigwigs to change some of their policies for the better.

Back to WIRED magazine and the gist of this whole article. Recently I got the idea to send WIRED one of my infamous 'concrete primes' hoping they would publish it with my byline. What I mean by concrete prime is an integer having no divisors except itself and one, such that when the digits of the prime are arranged in a certain way it spells out a word or phrase in its digits (see an example in my letter below). Now why would I want to do such a thing you may be wondering. Well, it's because I'm a prime hunter. I like to find the largest primes possible that have interesting and unusual properties; or even very simple properties but with large decimal expansions. The ones that I "build" to spell out specific words I like to call "concrete mathematics" since they remind me of concrete poetry (see the letter below for a definition). Because my concrete primes are on the cutting edge of technology (well, I like to think they are anyway) and since WIRED's over-riding emphasis is on computers and technology, I thought they might like the chance to print one or at least send me some kind of witty response. They probably won't, but it was still fun finding the WIRED prime. Here is the letter I sent to their San Francisco offices via snail mail:

* * * * *

Dear Editors of WIRED Magazine,

Please find below a prime number that spells out WIRED in its digits. I would be honored if you would print this prime in your magazine with a byline stating, "Found by Jason Earls, author of Red Zen, Cocoon of Terror, and How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell." Thank you for your consideration.

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

10008800008800088888800088888800008888888800888888000001

10008800008800000880000088000888008800000000880008880001

10008800008800000880000088000888008800000000880000880001

10008800008800000880000088008800008888888000880000880001

10008808808800000880000088888000008800000000880000880001

10008808808800000880000088008800008800000000880000880001

10000880088000000880000088000880008800000000880008800001

10000880088000088888800088000088008888888800888888000001

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

33333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

55555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555

77777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

*10^225-1

More info on the prime above: Its full decimal expansion has 1233 digits and it was found with the freely available program, WinPFGW. Classes of numbers possessing a certain visual component when the digits are arranged in a specific way is a concept closely related (in my opinion) to "concrete poetry" (poems in which the typographical arrangement of symbols or words play a direct role in conveying the "meaning" of a poem); hence, I have dubbed numbers like the WIRED prime above, "concrete mathematics." But I have also thought of simply calling them, "WIREDematics."

Regards,

Jason Earls

Bio: Jason Earls is the author of the books Cocoon of Terror, Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); } and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover's books, Neometropolis, Mathworld, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, Thirteen, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG's Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.

* * * * *

Do you see how 'WIRED' is spelled out in the bolded digits above (it actually requires a fixed-width font so it won't be too clear here)? Pretty cool, isn't it. I hope WIRED puts it on the cover of their magazine. I am waiting now for their response. I wonder if their editors are partial to mathematics at all. Surely some of them would be since it's primarily a computer/technology based publication; and since my concrete primes are cutting edge. Heck, they are so cutting edge they haven't even been acknowledged by anybody yet. Who knows, primes may be too nerdy for WIRED. But I'll bet they have some good programmers in their offices who could check that my number really is a prime. So far I have examined a couple of the recent issues of WIRED, but they have not printed my concrete prime yet. Maybe by the time you read this article it will be on one of their covers. You may want to get up from your computer right now and go outside to your nearest news stand and see if it's there. Maybe I got lucky and it's already on the cover. I'll keep you posted on what happens.