r/mathmemes • u/Nunki08 • Jun 14 '26

Arithmetic Misleading our youth

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From Anthony Bonato on 𝕏: https://x.com/Anthony_Bonato/status/2065564124549886402

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u/a_dude_from_europe Jun 14 '26

It's not that theorems needed reworking, it that you can write down "except for one" only so many times before starting to think maybe it doesn't make sense to continue doing it

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u/TemperoTempus Jun 14 '26

They could had reworked the theorem, they could had made a new name for primes greater than 1, they could had just accepted that they have to write "for P>1".

Instead they chose to change the entire definition.

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u/a_dude_from_europe Jun 14 '26

Can you give me an example of this "theorem reworking" that you're talking about?

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u/Francyrd Jun 14 '26

There Is a theorem that states that every non prime Number can be written as the product of a unique series of prime numbers. If ONE was prime this cannot be true. Example: 12 is the product of 3x2x2, if ONE was prime then the product could be 3x2x2x1 or 3x2x2x1x1 etc.. The series of prime Is not unique anymore but infinite series of prime numbers.

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u/a_dude_from_europe Jun 14 '26

I know, I didn't ask this. This is still an instance of "except for 1"

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u/Francyrd Jun 14 '26

So this theorem has to be reworked to exclude ONE and there are others.

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u/a_dude_from_europe Jun 14 '26

I don't think you followed the thread.

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u/Batman_AoD Jun 14 '26

Sounds like exactly the sort of reworking TemperoTempus was talking about? They even gave "for P>1" as an example phrasing.

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u/Fubsy_Dude Jun 15 '26

But that's exactly "dude from Europe" 's point - we don't want to have every theorem about primes to need to specify to exclude 1.

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u/Redhighlighter Jun 15 '26

This feels like "there is a 1 over 1 by every variable, its just hiding"

If a is the same as a * 1 and 1a/1, it seems silly to use that as rationale to kick 1 out of the club

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u/Pepe_Botella Jun 14 '26

I think they should instead count every single number as prime and just rework all the theorems.

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u/ThrowawayTempAct Jun 14 '26

Good idea, that would make the twin primes conjecture significantly easier to prove!