Re: Mersenne: interesting theorem

[mark snyder]

At 7:51 PM -0800 11/13/98, William Stuart wrote:
>Another interesting thing about this conjecture...
>
>If it is correct, then there is no last prime.
>
>---
>William Stuart  ([EMAIL PROTECTED])

Not clear. Why couldn't you have a largest prime, and then all even numbers
are just different sums (with particular primes used more than once, of
course) of all those (finite number of) primes? Then you would have a
finite number of primes "generating" an infinite number of even numbers.
Sort of like seeing even numbers as vectors in a space, with the primes
being the basis vectors.

But anyway, it's a bad idea to use an unproven conjecture as a basis for a
new proof of the infinitude of primes....


mark snyder
fitchburg state college