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From: wsadjw@rw7.urc.tue.nl (Jan Willem Nienhuys)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Subtle Math Questions
Message-ID: <571@rc6.urc.tue.nl>
Date: 24 Apr 91 08:05:13 GMT
References: <1991Apr23.163231.27780@beaver.cs.washington.edu> <1991Apr23.144230.14500@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> <51667@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
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In article <51667@nigel.ee.udel.edu> new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) writes:
>In article <1991Apr23.144230.14500@mailer.cc.fsu.edu> mayne@cs.fsu.edu writes:
>>Why isn't 1 considered a prime number?
>>As far as I know (I am not a mathematician) this really is somewhat
>>arbitrary. 
>
>as such.   Maybe somebody out there can really come up with the answer.
>Unfortunately, I don't have time to find all my old class notes

Prime = not a product of smaller factors.
You want your theory to look neat. How would you formulate
"every integer has a unique (up to order) decomposition in prime factors"
if you could throw in an arbitrary number of factors 1?

By the way, for some of the subtle math questions see the list
of Frequently Asked Questions that is posted to sci.math every
now and then.

JWN