Prime the Pump

The former FBI Director must have plenty of time on his hands. He is enjoying walking on the beach and posting on Instagram. Last week he did both…

The sentiment is obvious, even though Comey feigned ignorance and took down the post. He received a visit from the Secret Service, and I suspect the matter will end with that. I really would expect that someone adept at giving interviews and answering questions before Congress without actually saying anything would be a little more cautious about what he uploads. Didn’t the FBI invent the phrase “We neither confirm nor deny that ‘x’ is a person of interest in the case”? You can’t get more opaque than that.

The sentiment is not unique to beaches. On a recent club ride we were talking about the new American Pope, and one rider suggested that he would be happier to see white smoke coming out of the White House. Kind of clever but a clear indication that it was time for me to keep my mouth shut.

So there are a lot of folks out there who want to ‘8647’. in one way or another. A couple have tried the direct approach. Some Democrats are waving around articles of impeachment. Again.

After wondering how someone smart enough to lead the FBI could be so careless on social media, I started to look at ‘8647’ in a different light. Specifically in prime-al colors.

For some reason I am attracted to prime numbers. A prime number is an integer that has only itself and 1 as divisors. I started to wonder about 8647. It is an odd number, and since 2 is the only even prime number, that means it is possibly prime. Next I added up the digits 8,6,4 and 7. The sum is 25, which is not divisible by three. You may not know this, or care, but a quick way to know if any integer is divisible by 3 is to add the digits and if that sum is divisible by 3, so is the number. Examples:

1597. Digits add to 22. Not divisible by 3

9543. Digits add to 21. Divisible by 3, i.e. 9543 = 3 * 3181

I checked all the prime numbers from 1 to 93, and 8647 isn’t divisible by any of them. I only needed to go as high as 93 because the square root of 8647 is 92.98.

So not only is 8647 a political message containing a hint of menace, but a pretty prime as well. If this blog bored you, ’86’ it!