A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways of writing it as a product, 1 × 5 or 5 × 1, involve 5 itself. However, 4 is composite because it is a product (2 × 2) in which both numbers are smaller than 4. Primes are central in number theory because of the fundamental theorem of arithmetic: every natural number greater than 1 is either a prime itself or can be factorized as a product of primes that is unique up to their order.
A twin prime is a prime number that is either 2 less or 2 more than another prime number—for example, either member of the twin prime pair or (41, 43). In other words, a twin prime is a prime that has a prime gap of two. Sometimes the term twin prime is used for a pair of twin primes; an alternative name for this is prime twin or prime pair.
The Ulam spiral or prime spiral is a graphical depiction of the set of prime numbers, devised by mathematician Stanisław Ulam in 1963 and popularized in Martin Gardner's Mathematical Games column in Scientific American a short time later. It is constructed by writing the positive integers in a square spiral and specially marking the prime numbers.
In number theory, an integer q is called a quadratic residue modulo n if it is congruent to a perfect square modulo n; i.e., if there exists an integer x such that:
In number theory, Bertrand's postulate is the theorem that for any integer , there exists at least one prime number with
In mathematics, analytic number theory is a branch of number theory that uses methods from mathematical analysis to solve problems about the integers. It is often said to have begun with Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet's 1837 introduction of Dirichlet L-functions to give the first proof of Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions. It is well known for its results on prime numbers and additive number theory.
In number theory, Cramér's conjecture, formulated by the Swedish mathematician Harald Cramér in 1936, is an estimate for the size of gaps between consecutive prime numbers: intuitively, that gaps between consecutive primes are always small, and the conjecture quantifies asymptotically just how small they must be. It states that
A powerful number is a positive integer m such that for every prime number p dividing m, p2 also divides m. Equivalently, a powerful number is the product of a square and a cube, that is, a number m of the form m = a2b3, where a and b are positive integers. Powerful numbers are also known as squareful, square-full, or 2-full. Paul Erdős and George Szekeres studied such numbers and Solomon W. Golomb named such numbers powerful.
In number theory, the Bateman–Horn conjecture is a statement concerning the frequency of prime numbers among the values of a system of polynomials, named after mathematicians Paul T. Bateman and Roger A. Horn who proposed it in 1962. It provides a vast generalization of such conjectures as the Hardy and Littlewood conjecture on the density of twin primes or their conjecture on primes of the form n2 + 1; it is also a strengthening of Schinzel's hypothesis H.
Legendre's conjecture, proposed by Adrien-Marie Legendre, states that there is a prime number between and for every positive integer . The conjecture is one of Landau's problems (1912) on prime numbers, and is one of many open problems on the spacing of prime numbers.
In number theory, Brocard's conjecture is the conjecture that there are at least four prime numbers between (pn)2 and (pn+1)2, where pn is the nth prime number, for every n ≥ 2. The conjecture is named after Henri Brocard. It is widely believed that this conjecture is true. However, it remains unproven as of 2022.
A prime gap is the difference between two successive prime numbers. The n-th prime gap, denoted gn or g(pn) is the difference between the (n + 1)-st and the n-th prime numbers, i.e.
Andrica's conjecture is a conjecture regarding the gaps between prime numbers.
Brocard's problem is a problem in mathematics that seeks integer values of such that is a perfect square, where is the factorial. Only three values of are known — 4, 5, 7 — and it is not known whether there are any more.
In mathematics, Euler's idoneal numbers are the positive integers D such that any integer expressible in only one way as x2 ± Dy2 is a prime power or twice a prime power. In particular, a number that has two distinct representations as a sum of two squares is composite. Every idoneal number generates a set containing infinitely many primes and missing infinitely many other primes.
In mathematics, specifically the field of transcendental number theory, the four exponentials conjecture is a conjecture which, given the right conditions on the exponents, would guarantee the transcendence of at least one of four exponentials. The conjecture, along with two related, stronger conjectures, is at the top of a hierarchy of conjectures and theorems concerning the arithmetic nature of a certain number of values of the exponential function.
In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part 1/2. Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in pure mathematics. It is of great interest in number theory because it implies results about the distribution of prime numbers. It was proposed by Bernhard Riemann, after whom it is named.
In number theory, Firoozbakht's conjecture is a conjecture about the distribution of prime numbers. It is named after the Iranian mathematician Farideh Firoozbakht who stated it first in 1982.
