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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Prime numbers, the building blocks of mathematics, have fascinated for centuries − now technology is revolutionizing the search for them
A shard of smooth bone etched with irregular marks dating back 20,000 years puzzled archaeologists until they noticed something unique – the etchings, lines like tally marks, may have represented prime numbers. Similarly, a clay tablet from 1800 B.C.E. inscribed with Babylonian numbers describes a number system built on prime numbers. As the Ishango bone, the Plimpton 322 tablet and other artifacts throughout history display, prime numbers have fascinated and captivated people throughout history. Today, prime numbers and their properties are studied in number theory, a branch of mathematics and active area of research today. Informally, a positive counting number larger than one is prime if that number of dots can be arranged only into a rectangular array with one column or one row. For example, 11 is a prime number since 11 dots form only rectangular arrays of sizes 1 by 11 and 11 by 1. Conversely, 12 is not prime since you can use 12 dots to make an array of 3 by 4 dots, with multiple rows and multiple columns. Math textbooks define a prime number as a whole number greater than one whose only positive divisors are only 1 and itself. Math historian Peter S. Rudman suggests that Greek mathematicians were likely the first to understand the concept of prime numbers, around 500 B.C.E. Around 300 B.C.E., the Greek mathematician and logician Euler proved that there are infinitely many prime numbers. Euler began by assuming that there is a finite number of primes. Then he came up with a prime that was not on the original list to create a contradiction. Since a fundamental principle of mathematics is being logically consistent with no contradictions, Euler then concluded that his original assumption must be false. So, there are infinitely many primes. The argument established the existence of infinitely many primes, however it was not particularly constructive. Euler had no efficient method to list all the primes in an ascending list. In the middle ages, Arab mathematicians advanced the Greeks' theory of prime numbers, referred to as hasam numbers during this time. The Persian mathematician Kamal al-Din al-Farisi formulated the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, which states that any positive integer larger than one can be expressed uniquely as a product of primes. From this view, prime numbers are the basic building blocks for constructing any positive whole number using multiplication – akin to atoms combining to make molecules in chemistry. Prime numbers can be sorted into different types. In 1202, Leonardo Fibonacci introduced in his book 'Liber Abaci: Book of Calculation' prime numbers of the form (2p - 1) where p is also prime. Today, primes in this form are called Mersenne primes after the French monk Marin Mersenne. Many of the largest known primes follow this format. Several early mathematicians believed that a number of the form (2p – 1) is prime whenever p is prime. But in 1536, mathematician Hudalricus Regius noticed that 11 is prime but not (211 - 1), which equals 2047. The number 2047 can be expressed as 11 times 89, disproving the conjecture. While not always true, number theorists realized that the (2p - 1) shortcut often produces primes and gives a systematic way to search for large primes. The number (2p – 1) is much larger relative to the value of p and provides opportunities to identify large primes. When the number (2p - 1) becomes sufficiently large, it is much harder to check whether (2p - 1) is prime – that is, if (2p - 1) dots can be arranged only into a rectangular array with one column or one row. Fortunately, Édouard Lucas developed a prime number test in 1878, later proved by Derrick Henry Lehmer in 1930. Their work resulted in an efficient algorithm for evaluating potential Mersenne primes. Using this algorithm with hand computations on paper, Lucas showed in 1876 that the 39-digit number (2127 - 1) equals 170,141,183,460,469,231,731,687,303,715,884,105,727, and that value is prime. Also known as M127, this number remains the largest prime verified by hand computations. It held the record for largest known prime for 75 years. Researchers began using computers in the 1950s, and the pace of discovering new large primes increased. In 1952, Raphael M. Robinson identified five new Mersenne primes using a Standard Western Automatic Computer to carry out the Lucas-Lehmer prime number tests. As computers improved, the list of Mersenne primes grew, especially with the Cray supercomputer's arrival in 1964. Although there are infinitely many primes, researchers are unsure how many fit the type (2p - 1) and are Mersenne primes. By the early 1980s, researchers had accumulated enough data to confidently believe that infinitely many Mersenne primes exist. They could even guess how often these prime numbers appear, on average. Mathematicians have not found proof so far, but new data continues to support these guesses. George Woltman, a computer scientist, founded the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, or GIMPS, in 1996. Through this collaborative program, anyone can download freely available software from the GIMPS website to search for Mersenne prime numbers on their personal computers. The website contains specific instructions on how to participate. GIMPS has now identified 18 Mersenne primes, primarily on personal computers using Intel chips. The program averages a new discovery about every one to two years. Luke Durant, a retired programmer, discovered the current record for the largest known prime, (2136,279,841 - 1), in October 2024. Referred to as M136279841, this 41,024,320-digit number was the 52nd Mersenne prime identified and was found by running GIMPS on a publicly available cloud-based computing network. This network used Nvidia chips and ran across 17 countries and 24 data centers. These advanced chips provide faster computing by handling thousands of calculations simultaneously. The result is shorter run times for algorithms such as prime number testing. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a civil liberty group that offers cash prizes for identifying large primes. It awarded prizes in 2000 and 2009 for the first verified 1 million-digit and 10 million-digit prime numbers. Large prime number enthusiasts' next two challenges are to identify the first 100 million-digit and 1 billion-digit primes. EFF prizes of US$150,000 and $250,000, respectively, await the first successful individual or group. Eight of the 10 largest known prime numbers are Mersenne primes, so GIMPS and cloud computing are poised to play a prominent role in the search for record-breaking large prime numbers. Large prime numbers have a vital role in many encryption methods in cybersecurity, so every internet user stands to benefit from the search for large prime numbers. These searches help keep digital communications and sensitive information safe. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Jeremiah Bartz, University of North Dakota Read more: Planning the best route with multiple destinations is hard even for supercomputers – a new approach breaks a barrier that's stood for nearly half a century Why does nature create patterns? A physicist explains the molecular-level processes behind crystals, stripes and basalt columns Art and science illuminate the same subtle proportions in tree branches Jeremiah Bartz owns shares in Nvidia.
The Wire
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Wire
Ali Khan Mahmudabad Has Fulfilled the Task of a Political Scientist
Menu हिंदी తెలుగు اردو Home Politics Economy World Security Law Science Society Culture Editor's Pick Opinion Support independent journalism. Donate Now Politics Ali Khan Mahmudabad Has Fulfilled the Task of a Political Scientist Neera Chandhoke 4 minutes ago Ali has been penalised because our society has been taught to distrust intellectuals. It should realise that intellectuals are the lifeblood of our society because they advocate the thinking human being. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute now On May 29, 2025, the Supreme Court extended the interim bail granted to the political scientist Ali Khan Mahmudabad till the third week of July. He had been arrested on May 18, because a couple of people finding his social media posts during Operation Sindoor objectionable had filed first information reports against him. Initially, the court had instructed him not to post any opinion related to the events preceding and during the Operation. A day ago, these restrictions were reiterated. 'We do not want him to run a parallel commentary on the issues under investigation,' stated the honourable Supreme Court. Many learned commentaries have been published on The Wire on the legal and political implications of the arrest of Mahmudabad. It is perhaps time to ask some fundamental questions of the entire issue, because they relate to the way we think and conceive of our right to freedom, and the way it is threatened by coercive politics in the country. Plato's Apology – 'apologia' in Greek stands for defence speech – represents the trial of Socrates conducted in 399 B.C.E. When he is accused of practicing subversive modes of philosophy known as Socratic questioning, Socrates stands before the jury of wise men in ancient Athens raising significant philosophical issues. His accusers allege that the method 'makes the worse argument the stronger' and 'corrupts the young'. Socrates asks the jurors a loaded question. What, he asks, 'do I deserve to suffer or to pay because I have deliberately not led a quiet life?' 'I did not follow the path that would have made me of no use either to you or to myself, but I went to each of you privately and conferred upon him what I say is the greatest benefit, by trying to persuade him not to care for any of his belongings before caring that he himself should be as good and as wise as possible, not to care for the city's possessions more that for the city itself, and to care for other things in the same way. What do I deserve for being such a man?' 'What do I deserve for being a such a man?' This question can be asked by, and on behalf of Ali Khan Mahmudabad of the political science department in Ashoka University. What has he said that any sane, rational human being will not believe in? That war is evil. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had famously said to President Vladimir Putin of Russia that this is not an era for war. May I with full respect remind the prime minister that there never can be an era for war. War devastates, it kills babies, it destroys cities and villages, it demolishes hospitals and houses, it annihilates the environment for decades to come, it is the ultimate curse that can befall a people. We just have to look at our screens to see what military aggression has done to Palestine and Ukraine, how many lives have been destroyed, how many psyches have been deranged, how many people have been denied basic goods like drinking water, food, and medicines, and how they died hungry, tired, and exhausted. Do we really have to be told what horror has been unleashed by war? When Ali foregrounded the dangers of war in his social media post, he was warning hotheads who have been baying for blood to not defend war as it is the ultimate dreadfulness that confronts human beings. Whose interests are served by war? The poet Amrita Syam scripts an imaginary conversation between Subhadra, one of the wives of the hero of Kurukshetra, Arjuna, and Krishna in the poem Kurukshetra. Fought in the name of justice, the human costs of the war were unimaginable. Generations were wiped out as two branches of a family confronted each other over property. Subhadra whose young son Abhimanyu was brutally slain asks Krishna to account for these losses: The war was, after all, a fight for a kingdom Of what use is a crown all your heirs are dead When all the young men have gone …And who will rule this kingdom So dearly won by blood A handful of old men A cluster of torn hopes and thrown away dreams. The poem should make us think. What is society left with when the grisly play of violence is over? Yudhishtir is convulsed with grief. What he, wonders, in volume eight of the Mahabharata, is the value of power, if the path to this goal is drenched with the blood of his own people? 'This heavy grief however is sitting in my heart, that through covetousness I have caused this dreadful carnage of kinsmen'. Ali reminded us of these costs when he spoke against war. He is a political scientist, and the task of a political scientist is to remind young people that there is a world we should strive for, a world of values, a world of humaneness, a world of solidarity, and a world without war. This the task of the social scientist and of humanities, to teach students to think beyond the foolishness of rabid nationalism towards a world of civility and of civilisation. This is the obligation of the political scientist. And I speak as a political scientist. A university without the humanities [and social sciences] wrote the celebrated Marxist literary critic, Terry Eagleton, is like a bar without beer. Without these two academic components, we will not have universities, we will have technical training institutes. Ali was writing as a political scientist, but above all as an Indian citizen who was concerned about the effect of warmongering on our society and our country. Listen to the message, do not shoot the messenger. Is our country so fragile? One of the two cases filed against Ali by a BJP functionary is on the basis of his post in which he urged his fellow citizens to also feel for minorities who have been lynched. So, one Yogesh Jatheri complained that Ali's post promoted hatred, was prejudicial to national integration, and endangered the sovereignty of the country. Really? The sovereignty of a great country like India is going to be compromised by a social media post? The mind boggles. Is our country so fragile? I would request professional filers of complaints against this or that sane and eminently reasonable academic, to remember our history and understand what our constitution is about. Even as independence came to India drenched in blood spilled by the Partition, the Constituent Assembly, which had met in December 1946, was drafting a constitution for the country. The Partition raised fresh challenges to the project of social and political transformation. Cavalcades of Hindus left from what had become Pakistan for India. Caravans of Muslims left India for a newly minted Pakistan. A substantial number stayed behind in the home of their ancestors. Also read: The Lost Art of Thinking in an Age of Manufactured Outrage Consider the mammoth task confronting the assembly. Indians who had been divided along the lines of politicised religion had now to accept each other as fellow citizens in a democratic political community that was being fashioned by the Constitution. They had descended to the lowest level of humanity during the Partition of the country. Utter chaos in northern and eastern India had begun to resemble Thomas Hobbes' state of nature; war of all against all. But the solution that Hobbes proposed in his 1651 Leviathan, a powerful state, was simply not enough. Society had to be transformed and social relations had to reworked and strengthened. The makers of the constitution had to introduce a modicum of sanity in a society that had been wracked by insanity. A new society had to be created out of the wreckage of the old, it had to cluster around norms that were as far removed from religious mobilisation and enmity that marked pre-partition and partition days of the 1940s, as possible. The political community had to be reinvented. Seeking to lay down principles that could serve as the fulcrum of a democratic political .community, the makers of the constitution institutionalised the normative precepts of political theory-freedom, equality, justice, and fraternity or solidarity. These principles had to bring Indians together on issues that concerned themselves and their fellow citizens. And progressive poets tried their best to further this project. In 1961, Sahir Ludhianvi, writing the lyrics for B.R Chopra's Dharamputra (1961) which was directed by Yash Chopra, and in which N. Dutta gave the musical score, asked a significant and shattering question in: ' Yeh kiska lahu hai, kaun mara? '. Whose blood is this? Who died? The moment we ask this question we realise the promise of fraternity in the Preamble of the constitution. The makers of the constitution, many of whom were well versed in political liberalism were aware that democracy falters if people do not care about others, about their ill health or poverty, or who do not raise their voices if a particular community is subjected to rampant injustice and the rest are indifferent. Without fraternity we remain a mere bunch of individualised self-interested rights bearers. Without fraternity, we continue to live in Thomas Hobbes's state of nature, isolated and cut off from civic virtues that complete us as human beings. Fraternity enables us to come together in networks of shared concerns and establishes a dialogical relationship with our fellow citizens so that we can think out the distinction between what is and what can be. This is what Ali was reminding us of. He reminded us of the Preamble of the constitution. Was he therefore arrested for upholding the constitution? Let me end by returning to Socrates' defence. 'Perhaps someone might say: But Socrates, if you leave us will you not be able to live quietly, without talking?' Socrates' reply is memorable. 'Now this is the most difficult point on which to convince some of you' he said. 'If I say that it is impossible for me to keep quiet because this means disobeying the god, you will not believe me and will think I am being ironical. On the other hand, if I say that is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living for men, you will believe me even less.' But examining our lives means that we must learn to think. We however live in an environment that dissuades and discourages thinking. This is perhaps understandable from the perspective of the ruling class. For as Julius Caesar remarked in Shakespeare's immortal play bearing the same name: 'Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men, and such as sleep o' nights: Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.' Ali has been penalised because our society has been taught to distrust intellectuals. It should realise that intellectuals are the lifeblood of our society because they advocate the thinking human being. Make a contribution to Independent Journalism Related News Free Speech on Eggshells: What the Ali Khan Mahmudabad Case Signals for All of Us The Sole Reason Behind Ali Khan Mahmudabad's Arrest Is That He Is a Muslim Supreme Court's Bail Condition on Ashoka Professor Mahmudabad: Has Dissent Become Disorder? Watch | Does the SC Have the Power to Gag Ali Khan Mahmudabad or Has it Overreached Itself? Learning Against The Grain: Perspectives from Ali Khan Mahmudabad's Former Students 'Seeking Justice for Lynching, Demolitions Not a Crime': Former Civil Servants Group on Mahmudabad Ali Khan Mahmudabad's Arrest Raises Critical Questions on Free Speech, Liberty and the Law Ashoka Prof Arrested For 'Endangering Sovereignty' Over Post Criticising Jingoism, Sent to Custody Till May 20 Who Gets to Think in India? View in Desktop Mode About Us Contact Us Support Us © Copyright. All Rights Reserved.
Miami Herald
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Pro-Trump Catholic leaders, spare me the outrage at his AI pope image
Along with most of the world, I saw the artificial intelligence picture that Donald Trump posted of himself depicted as the pope over the weekend. As a previously devout cradle Catholic who attended 12 years of Catholic private school, and who now continues to pay for my Catholic master's degree from Rockhurst University (probably until I die), I am long out of patience with how the Catholic Church has sold her soul for the cost of a singular platform — saving the unborn. Give me a break. It was her schools that educated me to know better. It was the Catholic Church that trained me not only to believe in what is seen, but to live by what is unseen. So, while it is hard to turn from the mesmerizing burning bush that is the current state of our country, thanks to my purchased Jesuit critical thinking skills, I know the crispy burnt bush is only the part of a greater strategy. It is clear why church and state should remain as separate as the Red Sea circa 1447 B.C.E. The Catholic Church has exemplified what happens when we ignore the civil ramifications of the tunnel vision of man-made religion. The AI picture nauseated me. What has the Catholic Church done by courting the king? And it hit me: The church is headed for the same embarrassing demise as everyone else who dares venture too close to the naked emperor. And the image I see in my head is a cartoon of the conclave, or Catholic priests, bishops and cardinals across the United States, sitting with hair color dripping down their jawlines. The Catholic Church is the Rudy Giuliani of our current presidential term. Every one of the clergy and laypeople who turned their eyes from the inhumane and shook hands with the devil — all in the name of children they do not want to provide for once they are outside the womb — helped to pack the baggage that I now get to carry. And not even Spirit Airlines is going to let me bring that baggage for free. Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York has stated that the president 'takes his Christian faith seriously' — and now says that his AI pope picture 'was not good.' That's all you got, Cardinal Dolan? Well, I suppose he's in good company. Both parties have been accused of siphoning money and relocating any problems to an area 'under the radar.' I suppose Trump and Dolan are two peas in a pod (if by 'peas,' you mean miscreants and by 'pod' you mean a state of delusion created by a sense of grandeur). To summarize before I derail further: The clergy that positioned the Catholic Church behind Donald Trump under the guise of Christian values protecting the unborn, we see you sweating now. And we see your coat of many colors melting into one gross color of waste as you deflect how you worshiped as one of Donald's disciples. Each one of you could have been America's mayor. Instead, you're just another line of stooges who lied for Trump. Awkward. But seriously, the cartoon idea did make me chuckle.
Scientific American
02-05-2025
- Science
- Scientific American
Could the Sun Fry Earth with a Superflare?
In our daily lives, the sun seems constant and quiet, sedately shining at a steady pace. But looks can be deceiving: our star can also blast out powerful solar storms, huge explosions of energy and subatomic particles. If these are directed toward us, they can trigger auroras and disrupt our power grids, as well as play havoc with Earth-orbiting satellites. These storms are magnetic in nature. A fundamental rule in physics is that charged particles create magnetic fields around them as they move. And the sun is brimming with charged particles because its interior is so hot that atoms there are stripped of one or more electrons, forming what we call a plasma. The superhot plasma closer to the core rises, whereas cooler plasma near the surface sinks, creating towering columns of convecting material by the millions, each carrying its own magnetic field. These fields can become entangled near the surface, sometimes snapping—like a spring under too much strain—to release enormous amounts of energy in a single intense explosion at a small spot on the sun. This sudden flash of light accompanied by a colossal burst of subatomic particles is called a solar flare. The most powerful flare we've ever directly measured occurred in 2003, and it emitted about 7 × 10 25 joules of energy in the span of a few hours. That's roughly the amount of energy the whole sun emits in one fifth of a second, which may not sound very impressive—until you remember it comes from just a tiny, isolated region on the sun's surface! On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. We also know that, historically, our star has spat out much bigger flares. High-speed subatomic particles raining down from solar storms slam into the nitrogen in our atmosphere to create an isotope called beryllium 10, or Be-10, which can be captured in polar ice after falling to Earth's surface. By examining ancient ice cores, scientists are able to obtain accurate dates for spikes in Be-10 (and other related isotopes), which can then be used to track historic solar activity. Such isotopic spikes have revealed what may be the most powerful solar eruption in relatively recent history, an event that occurred in 7176 B.C.E. Scientists argued at first about the cause of these spikes; the sun's activity didn't seem powerful enough to create the amounts of isotopes seen. Supernovae or gamma-ray bursts could explain the spikes, too—but only by occurring rather close to our planet, and that should've left behind other forms of evidence that, so far, scientists haven't found. Consequently, the current consensus is that the sun is indeed responsible for these massive upticks in isotopes. Scientists now call these spikes ' Miyake events,' in honor of Japanese cosmic-ray physicist Fusa Miyake, a leader in discovering and understanding them. While these flares were huge, there are reasons to suspect the sun is capable of unleashing even bigger ones. Some stars undergo what are called superflares, which are ridiculously powerful, reaching a total energy of 10 29 joules, or the equivalent of what the sun emits over the course of 20 minutes. In more human terms, that's about 300 million years' worth of our global civilization's current annual energy usage—all squeezed into a brief burst of stellar activity. Superflares are relatively rare. Observing them in any given star would take a stroke of luck—unless you stack the odds in your favor. That's just what an international team of astronomers did. The Kepler spacecraft monitored about half a million stars over a period of a decade, looking for telltale signs of accompanying planets. But all those data can be used for other things, too. The astronomers looked for superflares arising from more than 56,000 sunlike stars in Kepler's observations—which added up to a remarkable 220,000 total observed years of stellar activity. The researchers published the results in Science in late 2024. By sifting through that vast dataset, the team found 2,889 likely superflares on 2,527 sunlike stars. That works out to roughly one superflare per sunlike star per century, which seems pretty terrifying because it would presumably mean the sun sends out an explosive superflare every hundred years or so. But let's not be so hasty. For one thing, a star's rotation can powerfully influence the development of flare-spewing magnetic fields, and the rotational period was unknown for 40,000 of the study's examined stars—so it's possible this part of the sample isn't representative of the actual sun. And 30 percent of the superflare-producing stars were in binary systems with a stellar companion, which could also affect the results. The list of potential confounding variables doesn't stop here—there are several other factors that might make a seemingly sunlike star more prone to producing superflares than our own sun is. Then again, as I already mentioned, Be-10 and other telltale isotopes can be produced in other ways that don't involve stellar flares. And, for that matter, it's not at all clear how well superflares would specifically make such particles. So although we've counted five sun-attributed Be-10 spikes across the last 10,000 years, that doesn't mean the sun has only produced that many strong flares in that time. Perhaps there were others that left more subtle, as-yet-unidentified records in the ice—or that weren't aimed at Earth and therefore produced no terrestrial isotopic signal at all. If the sun did blow off a superflare today, what would be the effects? The impacts to life on Earth would probably be pretty minimal; our planet's magnetic field acts as a shield against incoming subatomic particles, and our atmosphere would absorb most of the associated high-energy electromagnetic radiation (such as gamma and x-rays). Our technological civilization is another matter, though. A huge flare could fry the electronics on all but the most protected satellites and disrupt power grids to cause widespread and long-lasting blackouts. Engineers have devised safeguards to prevent damaging electrical surges from most instances of extreme space weather, but if a flare is powerful enough, there may not be much we could do to avoid severe damage. Should we worry? The takeaway from the study is that it's possible the sun produces superflares more often than we previously thought, but this conclusion is not conclusive. So consider this research a good start—and a good argument for getting more and better information. Don't panic just yet!
New York Times
02-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
The Right Loves the Roman Empire for All the Wrong Reasons
The ascendant right wing loves ancient Rome. Its adherents love its glories, they love its ideals of hard, unbending masculinity — and they love the idea that Rome pulled its own greatness apart from within. Building on a longstanding American tradition of tying its history to Rome, the right's leaders have embraced the aesthetic: a bust of Caesar for Steve Bannon, a pen name borrowed from a fourth-century B.C.E. Roman consul for the essayist Michael Anton, a glittering A.I.-generated image of himself as a Roman gladiator to go with the self-proclaimed title 'Imperator of Mars' for Elon Musk. Those are the visuals. When today's conservatives — from the intellectual wing of MAGA to the so-called New Right — talk of Rome, however, their obsession is not with its glories, but with its decay. They speak of Rome's decline and fall with the zeal of prophets. We need look back only two millenniums, they suggest, for a window into our future. 'Anyone feeling late stage Empire vibes?' Musk once asked on X. The United States, JD Vance has said, is 'in a late-republican period,' referring to the period in which Rome transitioned to empire from aristocratic republic. In the 'best-case scenario' the neo-monarchist thinker Curtis Yarvin has postulated, America faces emulating the fall of the Roman republic. In the worst, she faces the fall of the Roman Empire. As it was for Rome, so too will it be for America — unless, they suggest, we learn the lessons of history. Whether they focus on the fall of the Roman republic in the late first century B.C., or of the Roman Empire in the late fifth century A.D. (or a historically mash the two into one), the same culprits take the blame: declining morals and declining birthrates. These theories are distorted, but they are distorted in a peculiarly Roman way. 'Rome fell,' Mr. Musk argued in a 2024 podcast with Lex Fridman, 'because the Romans stopped making Romans.' A similar population collapse, he has repeatedly claimed on X, is the biggest crisis facing civilization today. Mr. Bannon, influenced by Edward Gibbon's 18th- century opus, 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,' came to a different conclusion. Rome disintegrated, he argues, because its moral fiber — the 'Roman virtues of manliness, and service to the state' as he puts it — collapsed under the pressure of barbarian immigration and sensual excess among the elite. Mr. Anton agrees. 'Prosperity and ease,' he wrote, and the 'complacence and decadence' they bred, rotted the empire from within. Years of secularization, cultural war and national shame, these thinkers argue, are now doing the same to America. It's a convenient intellectual starting place. An imminent political apocalypse naturally requires extreme solutions. The pressures on America, Mr. Anton has suggested, may necessitate the rise of a Caesar, whose 'authoritarian one-man rule' would be 'partially legitimized by necessity.' Mr. Anton is careful to specify that this is not a future he hopes for, but some in his orbit seem to dream of Caesarism as a coming golden age. A new Caesar, according to Mr. Yarvin, is the guarantee of 'cultural peace.' Maybe, Mr. Musk has proposed, what America needs is a Sulla — the military commander who, in the early first century B.C., marched his troops on Rome, became dictator through force and imposed his vision of old-school decency on Rome by slaughtering his political opponents en masse. The Roman analogies the right uses to justify these conclusions are flawed. Quite apart from the problem of comparing modern America with a Mediterranean empire that flourished before the advent of Christianity, capitalism and mass media, advances in archaeology have now undermined the idea that there was a consistent pattern of population decline in the late republic or the late empire. In addition, decades of scholarship have demonstrated that even if moral malaise existed, it paled in comparison to the complex pressures Rome faced at those moments of crisis. In the first century B.C., for example, years of unbounded territorial expansion brought elite competition to new and violent heights; in the fifth century A.D., plague and grave economic mismanagement made themselves felt just as competitor states strengthened at the borders. What the right has captured is a tradition established by the Romans themselves, creating an uncanny hall of populist mirrors that reflects millenniums-old contortions into our present. Even as Rome grew into a lush hegemony, the Romans spoke constantly of decline, danger and crisis. The historian Sallust attributed the political convulsions of the late republic to the vices he believed had spread through Rome like a 'deadly plague.' A few decades later, Livy complained that the Romans of his day could 'endure neither our vices nor their cures.' Toward the end of the second century B.C., the Gracchi brothers claimed to have seen Italian fields empty of Italian peasants — the good stock who had built Rome's success were dying out because they could no longer afford to raise families. Nearly 250 years later, the satirist Juvenal complained that rich, vain, selfish women were having abortions to avoid carrying children. Why were these anxieties so persistent when, as far as historians can tell, they were not rooted in fact? Because they reflected instead the ethos of Roman culture and politics. Ancient thought had a tendency to view history as a story of decay rather than of progress. And more significantly still, those stories were useful. The narrative of decline allowed politicians throughout Rome's history to claim at one and the same time that Rome was the greatest civilization on Earth and that it was in the sort of existential political crisis that required extraordinary and often unconstitutional political intervention. It suggested there was something special, something intrinsically superior, about the Roman national character that was doubly under threat, the argument ran — from a decline in the number of Romans and a vanishing culture of singular Roman virtue — and that the only hope of its restoration rested on the emergence of a strong leader to reset Rome's course. Generations of Roman leaders found political weaponry in this fear of degeneration. The Gracchi brothers used their picture of a withering Italian people to call for land reform so radical that it ended in their successive assassinations. Sulla justified his decade of civil war and internecine bloodshed with the claim that he was fixing a dissipated political system. The most successful player of this game was Rome's first emperor, Augustus. When he came to power after defeating Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the battle of Actium in 31 B.C., he said his rule would be a temporary measure, lasting only until he had 'restored the republic.' He remained in power until his death 45 years later. Autocracy was by then securely established on the ruins of the Roman republic, and Augustus was succeeded without question by his stepson, Tiberius. The same arguments currently being made by the MAGA right were key to the success of Augustus's regime. During the final struggle of the civil wars, he had claimed to be the protector of old-fashioned Roman values against the threat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra's effeminate, eastern degeneracy. Ten years into his reign, Augustus enacted a slew of laws criminalizing adultery, restricting the sorts of partners the Roman upper classes could marry, penalizing the unmarried and rewarding those who had children. The moralizing agenda was key to the justification of his autocracy: Augustus was not a threat to the republic, it suggested, but its savior, here to restore the people and the virtues that had made Rome great. Meanwhile, the republic had ceased to exist. President Trump is no Augustus — and unlike his allies, he doesn't dwell on Rome — but his strategy often seems strikingly Augustan. It is the promise to 'Make America Great Again' that has carried Mr. Trump to two victories, just as the promise of 'restoration' carried Augustus through five decades of autocracy. The American people, Mr. Trump suggests, are intrinsically suited to triumph. Their natural greatness is simply in need of revival.
