anyone know what the first and last prime numbers are?

Question

don't answer if you don't know what a prime number is, it'll screw up my abacus.

i think 0 is the only prime number, since it is the only number that can be multiplied divided added and subtracted from itself and still be the only answer ie 0x0 0/0 0-0 and 0&0 all come up to 0. any other number has at least two other answers.

Answer 1

the first one is 2, the last one is.. doesn't exist.

Let Pn be the n-th prime number. For all interger N, (P1xP2xP3x....xPN)+1 is not divisible by Pn for all n from 1 to N, and hence is another prime number. So, for every discovered prime number, there is at least one other prime ((P1xP2xP3x..xPN)+1) larger than it.


regarding your additional comment..

prime number is defined to be is a positive integer that has no positive integer p>1 divisors other than 1 and p itself. So, from definition alone, it has excluded 0 and 1.

Actually, 0/0 is not 0. It is undefined. However, u can simply define the discontinuity at 0/0 to be 0 in this case. But even so, this has nothing to do with prime number, from the definition of prime.

I know u find 0 fascinating. In fact, like infinity, it is. It always has a special place in mathematics. A lot of time, when defining mathematical objects, 0 is defined explicitly because it has a special place. It is the point of inflection of +ve and negative, it is a additive identity, A+0=A, and for any number is its multiplicative identity, A0=0...with the exception of infinity(infinity is not a number anyway). For example, the set {0} with its normal + - and x operations is a Ring. And if u define 0/0=0, and adding / operation, it is a Field. But, this is trivial and of not much use. The point is, 0 is indeed special although it is not a prime.

Answer 2

I think you may have the wrong understanding of what a prime number is. Prime numbers are any number that can't be divided by any number other than itself and one to come up with a whole number.

So, for example, if you divide 7 by 5 you get 1.4. This result is not a whole number. So 7 is prime. If you divide 20 by 5, you get 4. This is a whole number. So 20 is not primes, because it has whole multiples. Here are some prime numbers:

0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 43, 47, 51, 53, etc.

Answer 3

The first few primes are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, ...
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PrimeNumber.html

Answer 4

The first prime number is 2. There is no last prime number.

Answer 5

first is two, and u can go ahead and try to find the highest prime number known. that'll take awhile. oh, and 1 IS NOT A PRIME NUMBER

ur abacus? u have an abacus? what?

Answer 6

The first prime number is 2, and the last prime number is...wait... I had it written down on a piece of paper......oh &*&%$#@, I can't believe I LOST it!

Answer 7

first is 1 then 2 and other than that its infinite