Posted on 03/14/2016 5:28:27 PM PDT by MtnClimber
A previously unnoticed property of prime numbers seems to violate a longstanding assumption about how they behave.
o mathematicians have uncovered a simple, previously unnoticed property of prime numbers — those numbers that are divisible only by 1 and themselves. Prime numbers, it seems, have decided preferences about the final digits of the primes that immediately follow them.
Among the first billion prime numbers, for instance, a prime ending in 9 is almost 65 percent more likely to be followed by a prime ending in 1 than another prime ending in 9. In a paper posted online today, Kannan Soundararajan and Robert Lemke Oliver of Stanford University present both numerical and theoretical evidence that prime numbers repel other would-be primes that end in the same digit, and have varied predilections for being followed by primes ending in the other possible final digits.
“We’ve been studying primes for a long time, and no one spotted this before,” said Andrew Granville, a number theorist at the University of Montreal and University College London. “It’s crazy.”
The discovery is the exact opposite of what most mathematicians would have predicted, said Ken Ono, a number theorist at Emory University in Atlanta. When he first heard the news, he said, “I was floored. I thought, ‘For sure, your program’s not working.’”
This conspiracy among prime numbers seems, at first glance, to violate a longstanding assumption in number theory: that prime numbers behave much like random numbers. Most mathematicians would have assumed, Granville and Ono agreed, that a prime should have an equal chance of being followed by a prime ending in 1, 3, 7 or 9 (the four possible endings for all prime numbers except 2 and 5).
(Excerpt) Read more at quantamagazine.org ...
Well till you pointed that out I was ready to smart off that all prime numbers are followed by and preceeded by an even number.
But, calling them prime IS a micro-aggression.
Hmmm... Sounds like a real foot-tapper...
I want every illegal prime deported. I thoroughly oppose inter-marriage between prime numbers and red-blooded American numbers.
Yes, but you said that 4 times, whereas I said it 3 times, then 13, therefore I am the more unique observer of the prime. /:^)
I do remember reading this very same thing in an 80’s issue of OMNI magazine.
Do they run straight or are they that other flavor
Did you steal that one from Steven Wright? :D
I know that 42 isn’t a prime number, but it darn well ought to be.
So...are we saying that Prime Numbers...discriminate?
Every prime number ending in 9 is 100% guaranteed to be followed by an odd number ending in 1 before an odd number ending in 9. Similarly, primes ending in 1 are 100% guaranteed to be followed by an odd number ending in 9 before an odd number ending in 1.
The “reason” we keep finding new things is because we THINK we understand stuff, when in reality we are like a blind man feeling our way along.
At any moment, our “view” or reality is the set of things we believe to be true.
Quantum State theory has proven that the “reality” of our universe is an projection, and similar to relativity, that view depends on the observer.
Yikes! This undermines the very notion that we can probe the universe like a tinker toy set.....Neil FullofGassy and Carl SayAgain? will be highly unpleased by this turn of events, because the emperor not only has no clothes, but is he really an emperor?
“I know that 42 isn’t a prime number, but it darn well ought to be.”
42 wins a “participation prize” for being, like all non-primes, the unique product of a set of prime numbers : 2x3x7
Isn't that prejudicial and racist?
TWO is THE number! One (who does not qualify as prime) is the loneliest and three is a crowd. The others are boring, as I think out loud.
Bump.....
In what way are prime numbers useful in cyber security?
Omni was a great magazine!
My dad got me a subscription when I was 12.
It had a big influence on me.
There are an infinite number of primes.
All numbers are factorable by primes.
He who knows the current largest prime has a number space that no one else knows.
He who has a number space unknown to others is secure; all others are insecure.
All unknown prime numbers are unpredictable and must be found by brute force computing.
Finding the next largest prime number is a function of computing speed and search algorithm.
This thread is about a statistical search algorithm that can boost chances of a ‘hit’.
FReegards!
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