Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Certain number-theoretic methods exist for testing whether a number is prime, such as the Lucas test and Proth's test. These tests typically require factorization of n + 1, n − 1, or a similar quantity, which means that they are not useful for general-purpose primality testing, but they are often quite powerful when the tested number n is ...
In computational number theory, the Lucas test is a primality test for a natural number n; it requires that the prime factors of n − 1 be already known. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It is the basis of the Pratt certificate that gives a concise verification that n is prime.
Suppose we wish to determine whether n = 221 is prime.Randomly pick 1 < a < 220, say a = 38.We check the above congruence and find that it holds: = (). Either 221 is prime, or 38 is a Fermat liar, so we take another a, say 24:
However, it does not contain all the prime numbers, since the terms gcd(n + 1, a n) are always odd and so never equal to 2. 587 is the smallest prime (other than 2) not appearing in the first 10,000 outcomes that are different from 1. Nevertheless, in the same paper it was conjectured to contain all odd primes, even though it is rather inefficient.
When p is a prime, p 2 is a Fermat pseudoprime to base b if and only if p is a Wieferich prime to base b. For example, 1093 2 = 1194649 is a Fermat pseudoprime to base 2, and 11 2 = 121 is a Fermat pseudoprime to base 3. The number of the values of b for n are (For n prime, the number of the values of b must be n − 1, since all b satisfy the ...
So if it is unknown whether a number n is prime or composite, we can pick a random number a, calculate the Jacobi symbol ( a / n ) and compare it with Euler's formula; if they differ modulo n, then n is composite; if they have the same residue modulo n for many different values of a, then n is "probably prime".
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
In mathematics, the prime-counting function is the function counting the number of prime numbers less than or equal to some real number x. [1] [2] It is denoted by π(x) (unrelated to the number π). A symmetric variant seen sometimes is π 0 (x), which is equal to π(x) − 1 ⁄ 2 if x is exactly a prime number, and equal to π(x) otherwise.