Truth, Lies, and Drinking Games OT

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, "olivierfouquet2000" <olivier.fouquet at p...> 
wrote:

> I cannot refrain myself from opening my big mouth anymore!
> Being a mathematician and a number theorist to boot, I can give you a 100% safe answer 
> on these, and also on one-sided black sheep.
> 
> Sooooooooooo
> 
> 1 is a perfect square, 1 is a power of two and 1 is not a prime number.
> 
> 1 is a perfect square because it is one squared (!). 
> 
> 1 is a power of true because, well it is really a question of definition, but there is no 
> reason to arbitrarily exclude zero from the other natural numbers, so yes it is two to the 
> zero power.
> 
> 1 is not a prime number because if so, the so-called fundamental theorem of 
arithmetics 
> would be wrong, which is bad for a fundamental theorem. The theorem says that any 
> natural number greater than 2 can be writtten in an unique way as a an unordered 
product 
> of prime numbers. The key words here are "in an unique way." If 1 was a prime number, 
> you could write 6 as 2 times 3 or 1 times 2 times 3 or 1 times 1 times 2 times 3 and 
that 
> would lead to enormous problems.
> 
> In fact, failure to notice this fact probably lead Fermat to believe he had a proof of his 
> celebrated last theorem, so that he scribbled some words about a margin being not 
wide 
> enough, and the rest is history.
> 
> I promise this is the first and last post here about numbers
> 
> Olivier
> 
> PS: And of course, the most we can say about the sheep, is that it appears black on at 
least 
> one side when seen from a train.


You know, it's really fascinating (and encouraging) that toc has amongst
the membership so many representatives of scientific disciplines. Adds
to the fun no end and there's always a chance that one's abysmal ignorance 
may be abated.

As a humble ex-microbiologist/virologist/geneticist I can only report that
which I have been told and willingly bow to the superior knowledge of the 
cognoscenti. David, Rita and Olivier have the right of it and Langford and his
mob were in error.

Mind you, the speedy responses tends to reinforce my suspicions about 
mega-LOONic tendencies lurking beneath the surface of those with a 
mathematical bent. I reported earlier that the Fibonacci series was considered
for inclusion into the game but was eventually discarded. One of the main
reasons why was that 1 occurs twice in the series and agreement could not 
be reached as to whether "Argh" or "Argh Argh" was the correct designation.
To an outsider it's amazing that in a numbers game there can be so many
contentious issues with the first number to be uttered.
One can only stand bemused and somewhat impressed.

Kneasy