wu :: forums
« wu :: forums - Prime pairs is NOT hard »

Welcome, Guest. Please Login or Register.
Apr 24th, 2024, 6:38pm

RIDDLES SITE WRITE MATH! Home Home Help Help Search Search Members Members Login Login Register Register
   wu :: forums
   riddles
   hard
(Moderators: Icarus, Grimbal, ThudnBlunder, Eigenray, william wu, towr, SMQ)
   Prime pairs is NOT hard
« Previous topic | Next topic »
Pages: 1  Reply Reply Notify of replies Notify of replies Send Topic Send Topic Print Print
   Author  Topic: Prime pairs is NOT hard  (Read 2873 times)
Dmitriy
Guest

Email

Prime pairs is NOT hard  
« on: Jul 30th, 2002, 12:42am »
Quote Quote Modify Modify Remove Remove

Guys, this one is the simplest of them all.
 
1. Out of 3 successive numbers one can always be divided by 3. The proof is elementary.
2. Each second number is even.
3. Primes can only be divided by themselves.
 
Thus the number between them can be divided by both 2 and 3, which means it can be divided by 6.
IP Logged
Gamer555
Newbie
*





   


Posts: 19
Re: Prime pairs is NOT hard  
« Reply #1 on: Jul 30th, 2002, 9:10am »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

That's a good proof, lots simpler than the one I had.
 
What I would say is: (EXACTLY what you said, am not taking credit for what you said)
 
All primes above 6 odd.  So the number between them is even, and divisible by *2*
 
Out of 3 numbers, one must be divisible by three, and since all prime numbers aren't divisible by three, the one in the middle must be.
 
Is this simpler to read?  
IP Logged
NickH
Senior Riddler
****





   
WWW

Gender: male
Posts: 341
Re: Prime pairs is NOT hard  
« Reply #2 on: Jul 30th, 2002, 10:20am »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

The above are all good arguments.
 
An equivalent approach is to observe that all primes greater than 3 are of the form 6n-1 or 6n+1.  (6n, 6n+2, 6n-2, 6n+3 are clearly composite.)  Thus prime paris must be 6k-1 and 6k+1, for some k, and so the number in the middle is 6k.
IP Logged

Nick's Mathematical Puzzles
anshil
Newbie
*





   


Posts: 41
Re: Prime pairs is NOT hard  
« Reply #3 on: Aug 1st, 2002, 12:57am »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

Okay other question, how many prime pairs are there?
 
If you guess infinite, can you mathematically proof that there are infinite number of prime pairs?
 
( Similar like there exists a proof that there are infinite number of primes )
« Last Edit: Aug 1st, 2002, 12:57am by anshil » IP Logged
NickH
Senior Riddler
****





   
WWW

Gender: male
Posts: 341
Re: Prime pairs is NOT hard  
« Reply #4 on: Aug 2nd, 2002, 11:45am »
Quote Quote Modify Modify

As I recall, it is an open question whether the number of prime pairs is finite or infinite.  It IS known that, whereas the sum of the reciprocals of the primes is infinite, the sum of the reciprocals of all prime pairs is finite.  In fact, it is less than 2.
IP Logged

Nick's Mathematical Puzzles
Pages: 1  Reply Reply Notify of replies Notify of replies Send Topic Send Topic Print Print

« Previous topic | Next topic »

Powered by YaBB 1 Gold - SP 1.4!
Forum software copyright © 2000-2004 Yet another Bulletin Board