clockbackward comments on Bizarre Illusions - Less Wrong

11 Post author: MrHen 27 January 2010 06:25PM

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Comment author: clockbackward 28 January 2010 12:29:44AM 2 points [-]

A side note: The only reason that prime numbers are defined in such a way as to exclude 1 and negative numbers is because mathematicians found this way of defining them a bit more useful than the alternative possibilities. Mathematicians generally desire for important theorems to be stated in a manner that is as simple as possible, and the theorems about primes are generally simpler if we exclude 1. There is a more detailed analysis of this question here:

http://www.askamathematician.com/?p=1269