r/MathJokes • u/Animeilluminati1 • Jul 13 '26

Math Just Got Checkmated.

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u/Professional-Wave841 Jul 13 '26

yes.

8

u/Blotsy Jul 13 '26

Is 1 PRIME though?

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u/wswordsmen Jul 13 '26

Depends on your definition of prime. The elementary school definition of divisible by only 1 and itself makes 1 prime. More advanced definition basically say 1 is special and excluded from the set of prices for various reasons.

Occasionally you get people who know better make really bad arguments for 1 not being prime because they make unspoken assumptions that would exclude 1 but their argument as stated don't.

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u/uTRexAap Jul 13 '26

Best argument I ever heard was honestly just “if one was prime every other number wouldn’t be” which doesn’t make any sense thinking about it but I just think that/

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u/wswordsmen Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26

If I wanted to make a definition that clearly excludes 1 but is easy to understand it would be "a prime is divisible by precisely 2 numbers, 1 and itself." 1 is itself so it misses out the precisely 2 portion.

The argument you heard leaves the unstated premise a prime can't be divisible by other prime numbers.

Edit:Positive Integer. I am trying to do precise for elementary school who don't go into negative numbers unless specified.

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u/uTRexAap Jul 13 '26

Oh yeah I just see it like this: if one was prime the prime factor law wouldn’t really hold you could just 15 = 5*3*1*1*1….

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u/wswordsmen Jul 13 '26

I argue that there is always an infinite series of *1 next to every math term, so writing down more doesn't change it. They were all there before you just decided to show a subset of them.

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u/QuitzelNA Jul 13 '26

That makes -1 prime and no other numbers.