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> in fact, many mathematicians think the smallest prime is even

Up to sign? The smallest prime is even.



1 could be a prime, too, as for example Legendre, Lesbegue, Cayley (in the Encyclopædia Britannica), Kronecker, Hardy and Sagan stated at least once (see the URL I linked to earlier)

One isn't typically called a prime for the same reason as mathematicians typically say 0^0 equals 1; it makes many theorems and proofs look better.


Hm. I'm a mathematician. I always thought it wasn't called prime because it breaks uniqueness for the fundamental theorem of arithmetic.


It makes it look pret29th!




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