From cate3.osbunorth@xerox.com Sat May 19 12:34:49 1990 From: cate3.osbunorth@xerox.com (Henry Cate III) Subject: Is nine prime?
Organization: Xerox, Sunnyvale, CA
Lawyers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime, seven is prime,
although there appears to be prima facie evidence that nine
is not prime, there exists substantial precedent to indicate
that nine should be considered prime. The following brief
presents the case for nine's primeness ...
Liberals: The fact that nine is not prime indicates a deprived
cultural environment which can only be remedied by
a federally funded cultural enrichment program.
Computer programmers: one is prime, three is prime, five is prime,
five is prime, five is prime, five is prime
five is prime, five is prime, five is prime ....
Bush: What's nine got against being prime? I'll bet it won't allow
the pledge of allegiance to be said in our schools either.
Richard Nixon: Put nine on the enemies list. I'm gonna get that number.
Rec.humor poster: one is prime, one is prime, one is prime, one is prime
Professor: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as
an exercise for the student.
Computational linguist: 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an
odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime, ...
Computer Scientist: 10 prime, 11 prime, 101 prime…
Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime…hey, let's publish!
Measure nontheorist: there are exactly as many odd numbers as primes
(Euclid, Cantor), and exactly one even prime (namely 2), so there must be exactly one odd nonprime (namely 1).
New Yorker: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is … NONE OF YOUR
DAMN BUSINESS!
Programmer: 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the
next release, ...
C programmer: 03 is prime, 05 is prime, 07 is prime, 09 is really 011
which everyone knows is prime, ...
BASIC programmer: What's a prime?
COBOL programmer: What's an odd number?
Henry Cate III
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Internet: cate3.osbunorth@Xerox.Com
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