At 11:38 AM 8/9/2004 -0400, you wrote:

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Third, give the proof. It would make for an interesting experiment to see what finally appears in print.

Probably something like this:

"The proof is based on the method of self-contradiction, in which an assertion is assumed to be both true and false at the same time."

I'm sure the press could find some other way to garble the proof, but this particular garbling could be avoided by using a direct, constructive, proof, rather than a completely unnecessary proof by contradiction.

Theorem: For any N, there is a prime > N. Proof: Consider any prime factor of N!+1

What does the traditional insertion of "first suppose there are no primes > N" add to this proof, other than the possibility of confusion?

Andy Latto andy.latto@pobox.com

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This is very nice, but recall, we started out talkng about the man/woman on the street and if I know them they may not find it completely obvious that,

Corollary: There are infinitely many primes Proof: Hmm.?? We don't want to back down at his point and say "If there were only a finite number then. . .". I think the solution would be for Socrates to show up just in the nick of time and say "Look, John/Mary, What does it mean to say that there are an INFINITE number of whatevers?" Perhaps using his celebrated method he could get them to agree that infinite MEANS more than N for any N.

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