this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Any examples? Sounds like you mean the reason why one is excluded from the primes because of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

No, he's right. "For any odd prime" is a not-unheard-of expression. It is usually to rule out 2 as a trivial case which may need to be handled separately.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermat%27s_theorem_on_sums_of_two_squares

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2047029

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2374361

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's not unheard of no, but if you have to rule out two for some reason it's because of some other arbitrary choice. In the first instance (haven't yet looked at the second and third one) it has to do with the fact that a sum of "two" was chosen arbitrary. You can come up with other things that requires you to exclude primes up to five.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Okay? Like I said, it's usually to rule out cases where 2 is a trivial edge case. It's common enough that "for any odd prime / let p be an odd prime" is a normal expression. That's all.

[–] JohnDClay 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I just remember it from numberphile, I don't remember what videos sorry.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Wow that was fast I just edited my previous comment and you probably mean "1 and prime numbers" by numberphile with james grime.