[105702] in Cypherpunks
Re: Goldbach's Conjecture - a question about prime sums of odd numbers
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Gillogly)
Thu Nov 19 12:02:27 1998
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 08:34:54 -0800
From: Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Reply-To: Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>
Ray Arachelian wrote:
> "Igor Chudov @ home" wrote:
> > Well, take 11, for example, it cannot be repsesented as a sum of different
> > primes. It cannot, pure and simple.
> Bullshit: 7+5+(-1)=11. Last I heard, negative numbers weren't excluded from
> being primes. 7 is different from 5, -1 is different from 7 and from 5.
If this is boiling down to a definition of primes, I'll haul out my Hardy &
Wright, page 2:
A number p is said to be prime if (i) p > 1, (ii) p has no positive
divisors except 1 and p. ... It is important to observe that 1 is not
reckoned as a prime.
My number theory class at college (admittedly that was three decades ago)
also started the prime series at 2 and went up from there. The term
"odd primes" always meant 3 and above, not 1 and above.
YMMV.
--
Jim Gillogly
29 Blotmath S.R. 1998, 16:29
12.19.5.12.12, 4 Eb 5 Ceh, Ninth Lord of Night
