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From: pshe@netcom.com (Pat Shelton)
Subject: Re: 9, prime gone bad.  was RE: zero blah blah
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References: <4f847k$n82@fido.asd.sgi.com> <4f8s3l$qof@nntp4.u.washington.edu> <j.cybulski-0702961300380001@info6.dis.unimelb.edu.au>
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Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 09:33:31 GMT
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In article <j.cybulski-0702961300380001@info6.dis.unimelb.edu.au> j.cybulski@dis.unimelb.edu.au (Jacob L. Cybulski) writes:
>In article <4f8s3l$qof@nntp4.u.washington.edu>,
>caj@tower.stc.housing.washington.edu (Craig Johnston) wrote:
>> Odd numbers not all being prime causes many 
>> problems in mathematics, such as the impossibility an equation that
>> produces only primes.
>
>Slooow! I do not think so. I vividly remember seeing a proof which stated
>that any series of integers (which obviously includes primes) can have a
>formula which generates it. I cannot remember the exact form of that
>monster but remember there were at least two of them. However, to dash
>your hope of generating primes with the speed of lightning, the formula
>was very much constructive and you needed to have all of the numbers in
>the series before you could work out the parameters of the magic formula
>(no it wasn't a lookup system either).
>

    It sounds like you have sometime heard about Newton's finite
    difference formula...this is no monster and can be found in
    any good book on actuarial mathematics, however, it has nothing
    to do with your assertion.  You >do< need to know the sequence
    of numbers and since the number of primes is infinite, you can't
    know that.
