To Do for Fri, Feb 8

  • Important note: office hours for Thur, Feb 9th are cancelled.
  • We have now covered the proofs of Results (Lemma/Corollary/Theorems) 2.3, 2.12, 2.13, 2.14, 2.15, 2.20. Please complete the reading of your text, pages 46-59. Pay special attention to the proofs of these items — they are core results of this section of the course. Compare my proofs to his; they should be essentially the same, so two voices may help clarify any confusion points. I may ask them on the next quiz. After this course, I want you, too, to be able to convince your friends unique prime factorization is surprising and cool, and to be able to explain why it is true.
  • Also please spend some time appreciating the Figures on p. 46, 52 and 55, as well as the rich historical context the author provides (e.g. 2.4, 2.5, 2.8-11, 2.17-19). One of the nice things about this text is that the author puts everything in context of what we know, don’t know, conjecture, and recent results. Mathematics is a living discipline!
  • If time remains: think of a question about primes that you are curious about, and see if you can find anything about it online. Many questions you might ask are still open!