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Re: prime numbers and African artifact
Ariel Scolnicov (ariels@pita.cs.huji.ac.il)
13 Jul 1995 08:02:10 GMT
In article <3tp5m0$u27@news.sas.ab.ca> davidwss@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca () writes:
Rob Freundlich (rsf@mother.idx.com) wrote:
: 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.
Wrong - those are ROUND numbers. The primes are 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13,
21, 34, etc. It's as easy as 3.1415.....
You mean as easy as 2.71828..., don't you?
David Wasserman (davidwss@freenet.edmonton.ab.ca)
Curmudgeon-At-Large (DWasserman@edc.gov.ab.ca)
"The older I get, the more value I place on experience."
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