Veritas is very happy playing with her number balls. Her name Veritas, in Latin, means truth. She loves to find truth in the numbers and their patterns. She gets very upset with disorder. This is why Riemann the Evil Cat bothers her so much. He's full disorder. Conflict and dislike abound between them.
Lemma is a mysterious bird. No one knows for sure what he does or where he goes. He has the habit of "zapping" the numbers out of balls. When he shows up, don't be surprised if numbers go missing. His first name Lemma means a Minor Theorem. A lemma (in math) is used to build up a better result or idea. It supports the "bigger" math idea (Theorems). Is Lemma Zapper a minor character in the game or is he up to something bigger?
Riemann the Evil Cat causes trouble. He likes to mess things up and destory things. Mark my words, Veritas and Rieman will have great showdown. Riemann the cat was named after "Riemann Hypothesis". It is one most famous unsolved promblems in mathematics with one million dollar reward for whoever discovers the proof.
When we started building this game, I wanted to include key number patterns. Prime numbers are one of those important number patterns. Prime numbers are the heart of why cryptography works--- it's the way we encrypt (hide) information across the Internet. Yet, when I asked some young kids “What is a prime number?” they struggled. They did not know. I am confident that 4th and 5th graders learned about prime numbers in school. It was one of many other topics and it was simply forgotten by them. BBC Studios has a good, short video about prime numbers. It is called What are Prime Numbers? w/Alan Davies. I like how it explains why we know there is an unlimited number of primes and that that prime numbers keep going on and on.
To learn about the Riemann Hypothesis goto The Riemann Hypothesis on Quanta Magazine youtube channel. This video, "The Riemann Hypothesis, Explained", is narrated by Professor Alex Kotorovich. He does a beautiful job at giving a simple explanation of the Riemann Hypothesis.
For more advanced learners, there is a more in-depth video on Riemann Hypothesis (also known as Riemann Zeta Function) at 3Blue1Brown Youtube Channel. This channel is run by Grant Sanderson. He presents excellent math visualization in his videos
The Clay Mathematics Institute has several Millennium Prize Problems, The Riemann Hypothesis being one of them. These one-million-dollar problems require showing math proof(s). Parts of the math proofs have been stumping mathematicians for a long time. It is possible that someone out there who is just reading this text right now will one day solve one of these problems. One day there will be a solution discovered.
To see the current Millennium Prize Problems, visit the Clay Mathematics Institute website.
