I don’t think that actually helps, because it’s all vibes. 51 looks prime, because of no reason at all, and absolutely nothing looks like it should be divisible by 17, again, because raisins.
Knowing why it’s true doesn’t make it look right.
The digit sum of 51 is 6, which is divisible by three. So 51 is also divisible by three. It’s not even hard to see that it’s not prime.
Yup, my personal prime check is:
- Even?
- Ends in 5?
- Digits sum to 3?
If it fails all three and it’s not an “obvious” prime (<20), then it’s prime enough for me.
But I can wrap my head around that 51 is divisible by seventeen because of 21 and seven plus something that deals with the remaining 30 somewhere.
I know that’s not how it works, but as you say it fixes my vibes when I see the 21 hiding inside the 51.
I’ll say this: the other thing that makes this one a hard pill to swallow is that 17 looks way too big, and my vibes fix doesn’t address that, but hey.
Why not add the digits? If the sum of digits is divisible by 3, the number is divisible by 3. 5 + 1 is divisible by 3, so it’s not prime.
49 “looks” more prime to me because it fails that test, and if I didn’t know it’s 72, I’d say it’s probably prime.
I think the posts along these lines are already two steps too far away from the vibes.
Nobody is even considering the number being prime, it just looks like there can’t be a round number of one against the other because one is big and ends in seven and the other is relatively small and ends in 1.
If you’re even thinking about divisibility rules you’re doing it wrong. As in, your brain is too impacted by maths to see what the numbers look like from instinct alone. There’s no thinking in this, they just look weird together.
