Thursday, January 17, 2008

The oddest prime - part 1

Which prime number do you think is the oddest? Well, thanks to Euclid around 300BC, we know that there are an infinite number of primes, or as he put it "Prime numbers are more than any assigned multitude of prime numbers.'' Except of course he said it in Greek, and for many that's probably still how it sounds. So, its not like you don't have a lot to choose from.

Of course, you can't say 1, I know you would like to. But 1 is called the unit, and falls into a class all of its own, it is neither a prime nor a composite. Anyway I'll leave the question open until later. And there really isn't a right answer ... you never quiet know what oddness is hiding in the murky fog of infinity.

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