I created a simple online visualizer that plots 100,000 prime numbers in 3D space. I got the idea from a previous post here, as well as from a friend who tried plotting it out using a pencil and paper over a decade ago. However, instead of it simply being in 2D, in my model, whenever n is a prime number, I'll alternate turning between the X, Y, and Z axes.
The positions are generated in Python using a simple 3D turtle-graphics idea. Think of an invisible turtle walking one step at a time in 3D space.
- The turtle starts at coordinate (0, 0, 0).
- It walks forward one unit per step.
- Whenever the step count is prime, we record that coordinate and turn.
- Turns alternate between relative right and up.
Feel free to give it a try yourself: https://joshumax.github.io/beautiful-prime-numbers/
by joshumax