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From: meron@cars3.uchicago.edu
Subject: Re: 9, prime gone bad.  was RE: zero blah blah
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Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 17:09:38 GMT
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Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.physics:170051 comp.ai:36847 comp.ai.philosophy:37539 sci.philosophy.meta:24426 sci.math:135546

In article <4fd8o7$d1d@knot.queensu.ca>, wevrick@qucis.queensu.ca (Dan Wevrick) writes:
>In article <4fd2ka$e9d@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
>Spike1972 <spike1972@aol.com> wrote:
> >Obviously, the key here is ---->only primes<------.  I know of the
> >formulas that you speak of, they are called generating functionals or
> >something.  They allow us to express a known number as a series, but in
> >order to generate the series for a prime number, we must know if the
> >number is prime or not.  That is the problem, because there is no
>                                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^   
> >consistant mathmatical way to determine if a number is prime or not.
>  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>  How about trial division upto sqrt(p), where p is number to be tested
>for primality.  This is deterministic, consistent (whatever that means)
>and mathematical.

Correct.  What the previous poster meant was "there is no consistant 
mathematical way to determinr whether a given number is a prime 
without actually performing divisions by all the numbers which can, 
potentially, be its divisors",

Mati Meron			| "When you argue with a fool,
meron@cars3.uchicago.edu	|  chances are he is doing just the same"
