Re: prime numbers and African artifact

Rob Freundlich (rsf@mother.idx.com)
Fri, 07 Jul 95 19:19:40 GMT

In article <5JUL199517392971@almach.caltech.edu>,
shoppa@almach.caltech.edu (Timothy D. Shoppa) wrote:
>In article <DB8qqE.3uI@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>,
shallit@graceland.uwaterloo.ca (Jeffrey Shallit) writes...
>> "A piece of bone found in Africa and dated at around 8,500 B.C.
>>has engraved markings containing what appear to be representations of
>>the numbers 11, 13, 17, and 19, all of which are prime numbers ..."
>>
>What? They left out 9, 15, and 21, some of the most useful prime numbers
>of all! :^)

No, no, no. Those are the *even* numbers! The primes are 1, 4, 9, 16, 25,
36, etc.

---

Rob Freundlich, Senior Software Engineer | "males are biologically driven

IDX Systems Corporation                  |  to go out and hunt giraffes"

                                         |                - Newt Gingrich

 "Some folks you don't have to satirize, you just quote em" - Tom Paxton