On Jan 14, 2005, at 12:46 AM, Andrew Curry wrote:
The reason why 1 is said not to be a prime number is merely
convenience.
Ah... OK, sure, analogous to defining 0! = 1.
For example, if 1 was prime then the prime factorization of 6 would
not be
unique since 2 times 3 = 1 times 2 times 3. A number that can be
written as
a product of prime numbers is composite. Thus there are three types of
natural numbers: primes, composites, and 1.
Makes perfect sense :-)
-ml-
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