The Sieve of Errortosthenes
The sieve of Eratosthenes beside the 'Sieve of Errortosthenes,' which starts by circling 1 and crosses out every other number as its multiple.
Drawn for an essay by James Propp.
Use this cartoon
Free for classrooms, worksheets, slides and other non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0, with credit to Ben Orlin.
Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2025-06-16-the-sieve-of-errortosthenes/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)Transcript
The Sieve of Eratosthenes: "Aha… the primes are thus revealed!" [2, 3, 5, 7 circled; multiples crossed out through 50] / The Sieve of Errortosthenes: "So… 1 is the only prime?" [1 circled; everything else crossed out as a multiple of 1]