Japan's first 'blockbuster' book in 2018 may be a bit surprising. It can be called the most absurd book in history. What do you think of this book? Will you buy it? In fact, Xiaobian thinks such a book is just a test of readers' curiosity.
The book "2017's largest prime number" ("2017's largest prime number") issued by Japan's Hongse society on January 13 is about 32mm thick, with 719 pages in total. The whole book only prints one number, namely 2 ^ 77232917-1. This is the largest prime number found by human beings so far, totaling 23249425.
Two weeks after its release, the strange book quickly climbed to the No.1 best seller of mathematics in Amazon, Japan. It has been sold out of stock. The publishing house is expected to reopen its purchase on February 16 after its emergency printing. The book is priced at 1944 yen, or about 113 yuan, on Amazon.
If you have no idea of a number of more than 20 million people, look at this book and you may see how big it is.
Amazon's product introduction to the book reads: 'this is the largest prime number known to human beings on earth at the end of 2017', 'an incredibly beautiful number' and 'what we think is meaningful, all to the readers'. The column "language" says "Japanese", but people who don't know Japanese will not have reading difficulties. At present, the user score is 4.7, 75% of users play five-star, 25% play four-star.
In an interview with Japanese media, Mr. Yamaguchi of the Publishing House said that there was no special purpose for printing such a book. I have considered printing the number of PI (PI) into a book, but because the number of PI (PI) after the decimal point is infinite, I have to give up. From January 21 to 24, the largest prime number in 2017 sold 1500 volumes on Amazon. The publishing house had no psychological preparation for this. Because there were too many orders to print, it had to entrust the printing factory for additional printing.
Reader's comments: the biggest entertainment works of this century!
Japanese readers showed great enthusiasm for the biggest prime number in 2017, which surprised the publishing house. The Huffington Post (Japan Edition) reported on January 24 that: 'Mr. Yamaguchi was overjoyed, but he couldn't disguise his perplexity; he said, & lsquo; this book really only wrote numbers, and he was worried about the disappointment of those who bought it. ’ '
Some readers' comments on Amazon are hilarious: 'the breathtaking and trembling beginning, fascinating looking back, at 08023742728, line 11, page 384, where the sudden death of the heroine made my eyes hot. I think it's the biggest entertainment work of this century! It's only amazing for this reader's brain hole.
Some readers left a message: "when is the next prime update? Please continue to publish" the largest prime in 20XX ". 'but as far as the special form of prime numbers like Mason prime numbers is concerned, it is still unknown whether there are infinite number of Mason prime numbers. If one day people find out the last Mason prime, the "prime hunters" may have to change their toys.
Some people seriously said: 'it may be more environmentally friendly to make e-books, but then no one will buy them. 'this may reflect the particularity of paper books to some extent, similar to the ship of Theseus. Only the form of paper books can show the ingenuity of the creators. But such paper-based book 'reading' is more like a kind of behavioral art, especially when the publisher introduces the product, it can be used flexibly in the form of hand account and notebook. In addition to the psychology of queer hunting, the miracle of "the biggest prime number in 2017" may be just another victory of xiaoqingxin.