Interesting Esoterica

Three Thoughts on “Prime Simplicity”

Article by Michael Hardy
  • Published in 2012
  • Added on
In the collections
In 2009, Catherine Woodgold and I published ‘‘Prime Simplicity’’, examining the belief that Euclid’s famous proof of the infinitude of prime numbers was by contradiction. We demonstrated that that belief is widespread among mathematicians and is false: Euclid’s proof is simpler and better than the frequently seen proof by contradiction. The extra complication of the indirect proof serves no purpose and has pitfalls that can mislead the reader.

Links

Other information

key
ThreeThoughtsonPrimeSimplicity
type
article
date_added
2017-02-27
date_published
2012-03-14

BibTeX entry

@article{ThreeThoughtsonPrimeSimplicity,
	key = {ThreeThoughtsonPrimeSimplicity},
	type = {article},
	title = {Three Thoughts on “Prime Simplicity”},
	author = {Michael Hardy},
	abstract = {In 2009, Catherine Woodgold and I published ‘‘Prime Simplicity’’, examining the belief that Euclid’s famous proof of the infinitude of prime numbers was by contradiction. We demonstrated that that belief is widespread among mathematicians and is false: Euclid’s proof is simpler and better than the frequently seen proof by contradiction. The extra complication of the indirect proof serves no purpose and has pitfalls that can mislead the reader.},
	comment = {},
	date_added = {2017-02-27},
	date_published = {2012-03-14},
	urls = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00283-012-9322-z},
	collections = {About proof,Integerology},
	url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00283-012-9322-z},
	urldate = {2017-02-27},
	year = 2012
}