"You know what seems odd to me? Numbers that aren't divisible by two." -- Michael Wolf.
Der Beweis, daß alle ungeraden Zahlen wirklich Primzahlen sind, wurde bereits mehrfach angetreten. Netterweise wurden hier und hier die Beweise gesammelt. Einige Beispiele:
Logician:
Hypothesis: All odd numbers are prime
Proof:
1. If a proof exists, then the hypothesis must be true
2. The proof exists; you're reading it now.
From 1 and 2 follows that all odd numbers are prime
Computational linguist:
1 is an odd prime, 3 is an odd prime, 5 is an odd prime, 7 is an odd prime, 9 is a very odd prime, ...
Statistician:
100% of the sample 5, 13, 37, 41 and 53 is prime, so all odd numbers must be prime.
Inzwischen haben sich auch eine Reihe von Linguisten an derartigen Beweisen versucht. Beispielsweise so:
The Historical Linguist
"It is clear that the whole paradigm of odd numbers was originally prime (see, for example, 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13). However, certain composite numbers, including 9, have been introduced into the paradigm, probably through borrowing."
The Phonologist
"3 is prime, 5 is prime, and 7 is prime. While 9 does not appear to be prime, if we said it is not prime, we would be missing an important underlying generalization."
Gefunden habe ich dies auf It's Ablaut Time, dessen Name die Gebiete andeuten soll, die man hier erwarten kann.
It expresses at least three themes that will come up on this blog: historical linguistics, non-concatenative morphological processes, and stupid puns.