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Do people really consider prime numbers the basic building blocks of mathematics? Isn't that supposed to be sets?
by jimmaswell 13y ago
Do people really consider prime numbers the basic building blocks of mathematics? Isn't that supposed to be sets?
- thetwiceler 13y agoI think people like to say the prime numbers are the basic building blocks of arithmetic (or numbers), and we say this because of the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic (which says that every natural number has a unique factorization of primes).
- whyenot 13y agoI would have thought it would be Peano's axioms for natural numbers or whatever axiomatic system is being used; depends on what area of mathematics one is studying.