Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xfwgj Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-04T21:25:13.073Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Absolute prime numbers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2016

Dmitry Mavlo*
Affiliation:
125195, Moscow, Fyestivalnaya 25-64, Russia

Extract

For a long time prime numbers have attracted the attention of mathematicians, especially those primes that possess some sort of a symmetry. The mysterious repunits An = 111… 1(n), whose decimal representations contain only units, form an important class of them. For a repunit to be prime the number n of its digits must be also prime. But this condition is far from being sufficient: for instance, A3 = 111 = 3.37 and A5 = 11111 = 41.271. Some of the repunits are nonetheless prime: A2, A19, A23, A317 and A1031, are the only known examples. The question of primeness of the repunits was discussed by M. Gardner and later in [2–4]. It is not clear whether the number of prime repunits is finite or infinite.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Mathematical Association 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Gardner, M., Mathematical games, Scientific American (June 1964) p. 118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2. Williams, H.S., Some primes with interesting digits patterns, Math. Comp., 32(1978) pp. 13061310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Yates, S., Repunits and repetends, Star Publ. Co., Boynton Beach, Florida, (1982).Google Scholar
4. Ribenboim, P., The little book of big primes, Springer-Verlag (1991) pp. 172173.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5. Richert, H.-E., Om permutable primtall, Norsk Matematiske Tiddskrift, 33 (1951) pp. 5054.Google Scholar
6. Bhargava, T.N. and Doyle, P.H., On the existence of absolute primes, Mathematics Magazine, 47 (1974) p. 233.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
7. Johnson, A.W., Absolute primes, Mathematics Magazine, 50 (1977) pp. 100103.Google Scholar