Quote:
Originally Posted by aastrotech
How about "Suspect Primes" to remind the user that any theory or assumption derived from them is suspect?
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No theory or assumption based on them can be suspect unless there's disagreement on what set is meant by the name and all current mathematicians
understands primes of the natural numbers to exclude one.
This is basically because it's easier to refer to "the primes and one" in the few cases where that's relevant than it is to refer to "the primes excluding one" most of the time.
Once you get it into your head that names are a matter of convenience more than a matter of fitting some arbitrary definition of simplicity, this whole mess stops being an issue.
Unless of course it's all about you being unable to back up one single step and note that 1, 4, 9 are the squares of the first 3
natural numbers, which would have made that other thread about something interesting rather than the useless quibble this one is too.
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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’
Trying to make sense of computers,
The Error Log.