More from ahbou

This was reposted on ahbou, and I thought I'd repost it here:

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Subject: Re: Can You Have Infinity Without Eternity?
From: lrudolph@panix.com (Lee Rudolph)
Newsgroups: sci.math

Gerry Myerson <gerry@maths.mq.edi.ai.i2u4email> writes:

>In article <dfsc40$79f$1@news.math.niu.edu>,
> rusin@vesuvius.math.niu.edu (Dave Rusin) wrote:
>
>> In article <dfs7k7$ori$1@news.msu.edu>, <stephen@nomail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Nobody ever asks for an all encompassing definition of
>> >'prime' or 'even'.
>>
>> But they should! Consider two demonstrations of the cuts of beef
>>
>> http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/resource-room/meats/cutsofbeef/b&wcutsofbeef.jpg
>> http://images.foodnetwork.com/webfood/images/tv/goodeats/beef_map.gif
>>
>> These show two distinct decompositions of the same thing into
>> irreducible pieces; how then can we speak of "prime" cuts of beef?!
>
>Well, who ever said a cow was a unique factorization domain?

Or indeed a domain at all? In these days of factory farming,
it's the rare and lucky cow that ever finds itself embedded
in a field.