Weekly Quiz, TLP, Rural Medicine: Down in Alabama

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Departure of the BPD chief

Birmingham Police Chief Scott Thurmond is leaving the job and has accepted a position with another police department. reports AL.com’s Carol Robinson.

He said it’s been something he’s been thinking and praying about for a few months and is not a response to recent calls for changes at BPD amid what could be a record year for homicides.

The local Fraternal Order of Police has said it was considering a vote of “no confidence” in BPD department leadership over low morale and other issues. State Rep. Juandalynn Givan and a co-founder of Birmingham Black Lives Matter are among those who have called for Thurmond’s ouster since last month’s mass shooting in Five Points South.

Thurmond has been on the force for 25 years and was appointed chief by Mayor Randall Woodfin in June 2022.

Deputy Chief Michael Pickett was named interim chief.

A county of an ambulance

You’ve read here before that rural Alabama has faced a dwindling number of hospitals and emergency rooms. In many places today, if something bad happens to you, you have a long way to go to get that level of medical care.

And starting today in a rural county, AL.com’s Savannah Tryens-Fernandes reportsThere is only one ambulance to take you there.

In all 890 square miles of Pickens County, there is now one ambulance in operation. According to the Aliceville Fire Department, they are trying to find a way to get a second one back up and running, but there is no funding.

Unfortunately, this is not an atypical story. According to the Rural Health Research and Policy Centers, 64 of Alabama’s 67 counties are considered “ambulance deserts.”

In Pickens County, the only hospital closed in 2020. That meant less revenue for the ambulance service and fewer EMTs working in the county.

higher mathematics

A man who attended the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science in Mobile has accomplished great things. Specifically, to a very, very, very large number.

AL.com’s Heather Gann reports that Luke Durant has discovered the largest known prime number.

As you remember, prime numbers are numbers that are divisible only by themselves and 1. Six is ​​not a prime number because you can divide it by 2 or 3 and get a whole number. But 3, 5 and 7 are prime numbers. So are 11, 13, and 17. As you go, the primes get further and further apart, so before you know it, you’re dealing with really big numbers.

Durant, now based in San Jose, California, used graphics processing units, or GPUs, which are used for digital graphics and artificial intelligence, to find a prime number that has more than 41 million digits.

Let that sink in. The number one billion has 13 digits. Durant’s prime number has 41 million digits.

For brevity, our math friends call the number M136279841. It’s easier to slip that name into conversation at parties.

The discovery accomplished a few things. It could have expanded the scope of how GPUs could be used in mathematics. If someone discovers a use for such extremely high prime numbers, it already knows it and is waiting to be used. And Durant won a $3,000 research award that he said he plans to donate to the Alabama School of Mathematics and Science.

Quoting

“I knew it was a privilege not to be wasted.”

Apple CEO Tim Cookto the Wall Street Journal, about his attendance at Auburn University.

In numbers

18.5 billion dollars

That’s what the Alabama Retail Association expects in holiday sales in the state during November and December.

More Alabama News

on the podcast

Alabama Democratic Vice President Tabitha Isner joins us for the weekly Alabama News Quiz.

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