From: Mark Hahn <mhahn@tcbtech.com>
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 23:21:23 +0800
To: Jim Choate <cypherpunks@EINSTEIN.ssz.com (Cypherpunks Distributed Remailer)
Subject: RE: Goldbach's Conjecture (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <199811200339.VAA08272@einstein.ssz.com>
Message-ID: <3.0.1.32.19981120094101.00946d40@mail.aosi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 09:39 PM 11/19/98 -0600, Jim Choate instructed:
>It's interesting that Fermat doesn't mention that the only prime that can
>use two as a factor is 4. And you can't factor 2 at all since we eliminate
>1 as a potential candidate (another issue of symmetry breaking simply so we
>don't have to write '....works for every prime but 1' on all our theorems).

I thought I was following along until I got here, and got very lost. First
question: I think the first sentence implies 4 is prime, so I must have
the emphasis wrong.

Unless you are saying that you cannot factor 4 as 2*2 because < of
something I missed >. So the only factorization of 4 is 4*1, hence 
four is prime. 

The other explanation is "Whoosh" the whole conversation when over
my head and I'm lost.

-MpH


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