A historical survey of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic (Q5953248)

The fundamental theorem concerns the factorization of a (positive) integer into prime factors, and has two parts: (1) that the process is possible; and (2) the result is unique (apart from order of primes). The authors review the works by Euclid and a few Arabic and European successors in which either one of these parts is proved, or some cognate theorem is demonstrated. They concur with the normal historical view that Gauss was the first to give an explicit statement of each part, and even he did not prove (1). Others may have felt the theorem too ``obvious'' to need discussion.