3 ms·
But it's not prime - what am I missing? Why is this anecdote significant?
by bhasi 2y ago
But it's not prime - what am I missing? Why is this anecdote significant?
- bongodongobob 2y agoYeah I don't get it either.
- monadINtop 2y ago[dead]
- eigenket 2y agoThe point is that Grothendieck, easily one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, who regularly proved deep and fundamental facts about prime numbers, cared so little about particular numbers that he accidentally gave an easy to see non-prime as an example of a prime. He was used to working on completely different levels of abstraction, so when faced with concrete numbers he could easily make a mistake that a school-child (or hacker news commenter) could spot.