Editing Talk:2263: Cicadas

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::: (Yeah, sorry, +1 on indent aain.) Indeed, it's difficult to use the right language to get that point across, though. In my Trivia edit I put in the word "happenstance" at one point. An awkward word, but trying to make that point. Ditto demonstrating why 16 years is 'worse' (while mentioning just one reason why, e.g., 2<sup>82,589,933</sup>−1 would be an impractical choice of Prime, too!).  So DNA/etc that ''just happens to'' produce an effective counter-to-N (of external cues indicating another year has passed) before provoking a given stage of life transition is better when that N is 17 (or 13), and other Ns are less advantageous. They may well have arisen, but died out. (As did the 13-year Brood-21, IIRC, for whatever reason, maybe anthropogenic, at the end of the 19<sup>th</sup>C.)  Not that we're entirely sure why 'better' (I would firmly side with it being likely related to predator and/or resource-competitor avoidance, with self-reinforcing temporal divergence from their relatives that chose a different frequency and/or offset, but there could be other advantages not observed), and the cicadas probably don't know or properly appreciate what {{w|Dayworld_(novel_series)|they're doing}}. Their ancestors definitely did not go "Hey, chaps, I've got a ''brilliant'' plan...", just before one of their kind decided to make his inaugural multi-year nap. But something happened, and a fascinating emergent behaviour resulted. Don't you just love the Universe, sometimes? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.118|141.101.98.118]] 22:56, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 
::: (Yeah, sorry, +1 on indent aain.) Indeed, it's difficult to use the right language to get that point across, though. In my Trivia edit I put in the word "happenstance" at one point. An awkward word, but trying to make that point. Ditto demonstrating why 16 years is 'worse' (while mentioning just one reason why, e.g., 2<sup>82,589,933</sup>−1 would be an impractical choice of Prime, too!).  So DNA/etc that ''just happens to'' produce an effective counter-to-N (of external cues indicating another year has passed) before provoking a given stage of life transition is better when that N is 17 (or 13), and other Ns are less advantageous. They may well have arisen, but died out. (As did the 13-year Brood-21, IIRC, for whatever reason, maybe anthropogenic, at the end of the 19<sup>th</sup>C.)  Not that we're entirely sure why 'better' (I would firmly side with it being likely related to predator and/or resource-competitor avoidance, with self-reinforcing temporal divergence from their relatives that chose a different frequency and/or offset, but there could be other advantages not observed), and the cicadas probably don't know or properly appreciate what {{w|Dayworld_(novel_series)|they're doing}}. Their ancestors definitely did not go "Hey, chaps, I've got a ''brilliant'' plan...", just before one of their kind decided to make his inaugural multi-year nap. But something happened, and a fascinating emergent behaviour resulted. Don't you just love the Universe, sometimes? [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.118|141.101.98.118]] 22:56, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 
::::The intendation gets pretty confusing with my reply below for a comment far above. Anyway, are you sure that 2⁸²⁵⁸⁹⁹³³-1 is a prime number? :D I couldn't even get an online "big number calculator" to just print out the number for me, especially not check for being prime. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 23:06, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 
::::The intendation gets pretty confusing with my reply below for a comment far above. Anyway, are you sure that 2⁸²⁵⁸⁹⁹³³-1 is a prime number? :D I couldn't even get an online "big number calculator" to just print out the number for me, especially not check for being prime. [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 23:06, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
:::::It actually is the {{w|Largest known prime number}} as of January 2020. It was discovered (according to the linked wiki article) in December 2018. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 07:40, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
 
  
 
:Why did you make an edit to replace "go so far to remove" with "go so far and remove"? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:47, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
 
:Why did you make an edit to replace "go so far to remove" with "go so far and remove"? [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 18:47, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

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