floofloof@lemmy.ca to A place for everything about math@lemmy.mlEnglish · 11 months agoSimple formula makes prime numbers easy, but a million-dollar mystery remainswww.scientificamerican.comexternal-linkmessage-square2fedilinkarrow-up11arrow-down10
arrow-up11arrow-down1external-linkSimple formula makes prime numbers easy, but a million-dollar mystery remainswww.scientificamerican.comfloofloof@lemmy.ca to A place for everything about math@lemmy.mlEnglish · 11 months agomessage-square2fedilink
minus-squareKnusper@feddit.delinkfedilinkarrow-up0·11 months agoDoes this mean this formula can calculate prime numbers without finding all smaller primes (as the Sieve of Erastothenes does)? Or is that somehow just implicitly done with all the factorials and sums and whatnot?
minus-squareyewler@lemmygrad.mllinkfedilinkarrow-up1·8 months agoIt’s a Sieve of Eratosthsenes in disguise. It’s pretty clever from what I remember, but I don’t recall all the details.
Does this mean this formula can calculate prime numbers without finding all smaller primes (as the Sieve of Erastothenes does)? Or is that somehow just implicitly done with all the factorials and sums and whatnot?
It’s a Sieve of Eratosthsenes in disguise. It’s pretty clever from what I remember, but I don’t recall all the details.