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>0.000000000000000 of numbers have 2 as their second prime Is the article title correct without explicitly mentioning "non-repeating"?
by lvass 3y ago
>0.000000000000000 of numbers have 2 as their second prime
Is the article title correct without explicitly mentioning "non-repeating"?
- p0w3n3d 3y agoAlef 0 numbers have 2 as their second prime
- sophiebits 3y agoThe factors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12. The prime factors of 12 are 2, 3.
- kccqzy 3y agoGood nitpick. If you allow repeating primes, then the numbers with 2 as their second prime would be multiples of 4. So a quarter of numbers.
- tgv 3y agoAnd the number of 2s (and 3s) would grow hard, which not favor a finite median.
- mauricioc 3y agoAn important part of reading mathematics is mentally filling in the "correct" interpretation for terms. The optimal amount of detail typically depends on the target audience. Part of that is because making notation fully specified in English is typically cumbersome: If they had written "as their second non-repeating prime", someone could come along saying "shouldn't it say 'second-smallest' or 'in increasing order' as well?". In papers, the use of such terms would typically be accompanied by a formal definition using more precise (but not fully precise, see the talk below) mathematical notation. I mention this not to be pedantic, but because inferring the "invisible" part of mathematics (when it can be done) instead of asking humans to do it explicitly tends to be a big usability improvement in theorem provers. Andrej Bauer has a nice talk about it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZSvuCJBaFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZSvuCJBaFU
- lvass 3y agoSure. I'm wondering what people would respond to blanket asking what is the second prime factor of 12, because I would say 2, not 3. So 37 being the median here was a bit jarring specially since "non-repeating" wasn't even mentioned in the article.