Re: Did prime numbers evolve?


In article <fto73e$2b53$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
dkomo <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, of course they did. Prime numbers are concepts in human brains,
and human brains obviously evolved. Prime numbers have no independent
existence outside of human minds. If humans went extinct, prime numbers
would go extinct along with them.

Not true. Mathematics is based on pure logic, on things that must
be true regardless of whether or not their are any sentients to
discover or use them. The ancient greeks recognized the five
platonic solids and realized that their could not be a sixth long
before examples of all five were found in nature--and no sixth
has been found in nature. If humans went extinct, and some other
species later developed the ability to think about solid geometery,
they would know the same five platonic solids.

Closer to your prime number example, some attempts have been made
to broadcast messages into space that could be understood by non-
human recipients. When trying to represent a "rastered" image,
these messages contain a number of pulses that is the product of
two prime numbers, on the assumption that the recipients, like us,
will only be able to find one combination of rows and columns that
contains that number of pulses.

Prime numbers also play a role in natural phenomenon such as orbital
resonances.

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