please empty your brain below

It would have to be the 2nd of February.

PS been reading this for a while, I'm so impressed, where on earth do you find the time?

Rats! Prime numbers... I spent ages trying to suss it out after my ridiculous first attempt.

And why isn't 1 a prime?

2/2/2011, yup.

And 1's not a prime number because it has only one factor (1) not two.

Hmmm, yet nowhere is that written as the definition of a prime number.. or is it? How can it only have one factor anyway? Aren't the factors the numbers you multiply to get your chosen figure? For one they just happen to be one and one.

I think there's a great injustice going on here! Poor old one.

One and one would be a factor pair, not a factor, honest. Trust me on this one - a whole branch of maths would break down if 1 was a prime number.

Hmmmmm, OK.
Though I quite like the idea of a whole branch of Maths breaking down. That's the thing about Maths... it's all in layers. Supposedly, Maths is the only thing that can be proved (unlike science for instance) BUT if one of the fundementals turns out to be wrong the whole thing would, as you say, would break down.

A factor pair eh? Well as long as poor old one isn't left on it's own.

I seem to remember something about this from either "The Parrot's Theorum" or maybe "Fermats Last Theorum". Or maybe my old Maths teacher, Mr.Piper who had discovered one of those strange sequences of (non-prime) numbers.

What of that old Medicine Head song, "One and One is One" is that of dubious value as well?

No one, from my teachers at school to number theory professors at university ever satisfactorily explained why one is not a prime number.

From the definition of a prime that they always gave, it is possible to argue that 1 is a prime, a special case of prime, true, but a prime nonetheless.

I'm sure there is a reason but I've never heard it.

surely if 1 and 1 is a factor pair, that means that any square number unobtainable by multiplying anything other than its square root is also not a prime number. Eg 4 (2X2) and 9 (3X3)...?

Here are four reasons why one isn't a prime number.

And you're right Lemly, no square number can be a prime number.

Educational this innit?

And hey, here we are seven and a half years later, and 2/2/2011 has finally arrived!











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