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Mathematics of Computation

Published by the American Mathematical Society since 1960 (published as Mathematical Tables and other Aids to Computation 1943-1959), Mathematics of Computation is devoted to research articles of the highest quality in computational mathematics.

ISSN 1088-6842 (online) ISSN 0025-5718 (print)

The 2020 MCQ for Mathematics of Computation is 1.78.

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The number of primes is finite
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by Miodrag Živković PDF
Math. Comp. 68 (1999), 403-409 Request permission

Abstract:

For a positive integer $n$ let $A_{n+1}=\sum _{i=1}^n (-1)^{n-i} i!,$ $!n = \sum _{i=0}^{n-1} i!$ and let $p_1=3612703$. The number of primes of the form $A_n$ is finite, because if $n\geq p_1$, then $A_n$ is divisible by $p_1$. The heuristic argument is given by which there exists a prime $p$ such that $p\mid !n$ for all large $n$; a computer check however shows that this prime has to be greater than $2^{23}$. The conjecture that the numbers $!n$ are squarefree is not true because ${54503^2}\mid {!26541}$.
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Additional Information
  • Miodrag Živković
  • Affiliation: Matematički Fakultet, Beograd
  • Email: ezivkovm@matf.bg.ac.yu
  • Received by editor(s): July 19, 1996
  • Received by editor(s) in revised form: January 23, 1997
  • © Copyright 1999 American Mathematical Society
  • Journal: Math. Comp. 68 (1999), 403-409
  • MSC (1991): Primary 11B83; Secondary 11K31
  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1090/S0025-5718-99-00990-4
  • MathSciNet review: 1484905