Prime quest
VISALAKSHI RAMANI
|
Is there a formula to automatically produce an endless supply of prime numbers?
|
Although computers have produced a list of prime numbers, no one has found any pattern in the way they occur nor can anyone predict the next higher prime number.
So the most sought after goal in Mathematics today, its to find a formula which can automatically produce an endless supply of prime numbers. Until this is found, the candidates competing to be prime numbers must be tested individually.
In 1874, an English mathematician W. Stanley Jevons claimed that only he knew the divisors of the prime number 8, 616, 460,799. He had obtained this number by multiplying two of the largest prime numbers known then viz., 96079 and 89681.
The largest prime number discovered without the help of computers consisted of 39 digits it reigned supreme from 1876 to the middle of the 20th century. With the help of computers the quest for the largest prime number surged forward.
In 1983, the largest known prime number was a monster with 39,000 digits in it. In 1986, the largest known prime number has an astounding 60,000 digits in it. It will occupy more than 500 lines and require 25 pages to be written down
New and sophisticated methods have been evolved to determine whether or not a number is a prime. No longer need we use the old method of successive divisions to check for remainders. In this method, even the super computer of today would not have time to explore a number with a mere 50-digits, even if it had worked non-stop for 15 billion years.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Young World
