I'm not sure about that, but read it for yourself if you like. The full text is there, and it's short.
Plato's "Hidden Theorem on Distribution of Primes"
While I was trying to remember where Aristotle says the thing about primes that Parmenides said, I came across this paper. It argues that the 5,040 number in Plato's Laws (which you will remember from the long series on the Laws here over the winter) hides a secret theorem.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I'm not sure if the authors are pulling our legs or are determined to prove that the ancient Greeks invented everything first.
I don't see how a discussion of the number 5040 in any way implies more general theorems.
Given the egregious typo in the abstract, I suspect this is a vanity press.
And, FWIW, in https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1750/1750-h/1750-h.htm you find 31 instances of 5040. So either they don't check their work or they are fabulists.
I haven't checked whether the theorem is valid or not.
Well, they may be patriots, since all the scholars are Greeks.
And community standards definitely differ. Citing Wikipedia is considered bad practice in American academia; referring readers back to it for important definitions is entirely out of order, since it is revised so often.
I had a quick stab at the theorem, and there's a little subtlety with squares that I haven't made an effort to resolve, but using Bernard's Postulate helps bound things nicely. Wikipedia is actually pretty decent on math. So far.
Interesting. Well, maybe those Ancient Greek mathematicians were on to something there; although I suspect it might be interpreted in.
I don't think so. I see no hint in the text of any generalization beyond his fascination with a particular number (misplaced, since people reproduce).
We'll leave the theorem as an exercise.
Post a Comment