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Primes (lemmy.ml)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Even vs odd numbers are not as important as we think they are. We could do the same to any other prime number. 2 is the only even prime (meaning it is divisible by 2) 3 is the only number divisible by 3. 5 is the only prime divisible by 5. When you think about the definition of prime numbers, this is a trivial conclusion.

Tldr: be mindful of your conventions.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Yes, but not really.

With 2, the natural numbers divide into equal halves. One of which we call odd and the other even. And we use this property a lot in math.

If you do it with 3, then one group is going to be a third and the other two thirds (ignore that both sets are infinite, you may assume a continuous finite subset of the natural numbers for this argument).

And this imbalance only gets worse with bigger primes.

So yes, 2 is special. It is the first and smallest prime and it is the number that primarily underlies concepts such as balance, symmetry, duplication and equality.