this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
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submitted 6 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[โ€“] anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I don't know if prime factorization is the correct English word for it but the operation I am referring to takes a (non zero) natural number and returns a multiset of primes that give you the original number when multiplied together. Example: pf(12)={2,2,3} if we allowed 1 to be a prime then prime factorization cease to be a function as pf(12)={1,2,2,3} and pf(12)={1,1,1,1,2,2,3} become valid solutions.

[โ€“] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 points 6 months ago

You are correct. The person you're replying to misread my set as a fancy way of saying "all natural numbers", not "all primes".
So you're both right, in that if 1 were a prime, the primes would not work right, and if 1 were not a natural number then those would not work right.

Using the totient function to define the set of primes is admittedly basically just using it for the fancy symbol I'll admit, and the better name for where we keep all the primes is the blackboard bold P. ๐Ÿ˜Š