makuranososhi wrote:
While I love math, I stopped when I reached calculus and have done little with it in many years. Not feeling well today, was letting my mind wander, and I had two questions that arose... is 1 considered to be a prime number, or an exception? I recall the in-class answer that a prime is a number whose only factors are one and itself - and that does not say that it cannot be one as well, but it is a curious situation. And are all prime numbers related by 2A + B, where A and B are both prime numbers? Perhaps there is a relationship between what A and B are, but for the first batch, assuming we know the first three (2,3,5):
.......
Since I'm not versed in math, I'm sure this already has a name... but while it is not an absolute rule, doesn't this help refine the number set of those being examined as being prime numbers?
M.
That is a rather interesting question. I will generalize it just a little bit. Does there exist an integer a > 1 such that S = {a*q1 + q2 | q1, q2 are odd primes}
contains all the primes except for a finite set of primes? I will research that a bit for you, but it sounds like it could be related to the Goldbach Conjecture or one of its variants.
The converse is not the case. For example 2*17 + 5 = 39 = 3*13 hence not a prime. But the original question where a = 2 sounds like a good problem.
Good eye!
ruveyn