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Re: prime numbers and African artifact
David Ullrich (ullrich@math.okstate.edu)
14 Jul 1995 19:44:57 GMT
Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan <dmckiern@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote:
>On 13 Jul 1995, David Ullrich wrote:
>
>] Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan <dmckiern@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote:
>]
>]> I'm familiar with three definitions of "prime number".
>]>
>]> [1] A positive integer divisible only by itself and by 1.
>]>
>]> [2] Same as [1] except that the number must also be greater than 1.
>]>
>]> [3] Same as [1] or [2] except that the number must also be greater
>]> than 2.
>]>
>]> For my part, I don't care for definitions [2] or [3].
>]
>] Hmm. How do you feel about the uniqueness of prime factorization
>] for positive integers? A lot of us are for it.
>
>Sorry, you can't quite =have= that, as 1 is a positive integer.
>
>When you sit down and state what you =can= have, you should see that
>the matter comes down to =where=, rather than =whether=, you use an
>expression equivalent to "except 1".
Hard to tell what's a joke in some threads. Just in case this
isn't, yes, 1 is does have a unique prime factorization, it's the
product of no primes at all.
Dave Ullrich
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