[cml]

Roughly: 1. The letters and punctuation which comprise a computer program in human-readable form can be translated into a string of numbers.

2. That list of numbers can be looked at as if it were one really large number instead of a list of smaller ones.

3. By being a bit clever about how the original program text was translated into numbers, the resulting very-large-number was made to be prime, i.e. not evenly divisible by any numbers other than itself and one. Prime numbers hold a special place in the hearts of many mathematicians.

4. The social implication of all this is that what would have been illegal (rightly or wrongly) in the form of a computer program entered the public record instead in the form of a large number with mathematical significance.