I made a thing. It costs $11. My wife has opinions.

Long-time readers know about my love of all things numerical. Or as my wife frequently reminds me: "No, you cannot stop strangers on the street and ask if they want to learn a mathematical mind-reading trick."

Well, I have news. I have finally found a way to channel this energy into something that doesn't alarm pedestrians.

It's called A Prime for You.

Here's the idea: you type in a name — yours, your kid's, your pet's if you want — and we generate a real prime number that is unique to that name. Not random. Not assigned. Derived. Personal. The same name always produces the same prime. Your name, your number, forever.

You get a certificate you can print and frame, a permanent spot in our public registry, and the right to say "I own a prime number" at dinner parties. Which, based on the dinner parties I’ve attended recently, is a significant upgrade over the usual conversation.

The whole thing costs $11.

I have been writing to you every week for 14 years and I have never once tried to sell you anything. So let me be transparent about what is going on here:

I built this because I genuinely believe that giving someone their own prime number is a great way to make math feel personal. The kid who rolls their eyes at fractions? Give them a 38-digit number attached to their name and watch what happens. A number that belongs to your child hits differently than a number in a textbook.

I also built A Prime For You because — and I'm quoting my wife again — "strangers on the street are definitely not going to be interested." She's right. But you might be. And at $11, I don't envision sitting in a hot tub while Oompa Loompas bring me sushi anytime soon.

Unless A Prime For Yougoes viral, in which case I will be able to stop strangers on the street to teach them math whether my wife likes it or not.

Here's what I'm asking:

If you know someone who would light up at owning their own prime number — a kid, a student, a math teacher, a birthday-gift recipient, a person who simply deserves to own something that has existed since before the Big Bang — grab one for them.

And if you want to help me prove my wife wrong about the strangers-on-the-street thing, share it. Tell your child’s math teacher about it and give all the kids in the class a chance to buy their own personal prime number. That's it. That's the ask.

A Prime for You — an $11 gift that lasts literally forever. We did the math.