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Prime Numbers Not So Random?
Jeff Moriarty writes "Some physicists believe they might have caught a whiff of a pattern in the sequence of prime numbers. This would have a huge impact across mathematics, and to people who just really like primes... or like being Prime."
In Mathematics, there's nothing that's "proven" that isn't explicitly defined as such. Notice how the Pythagorean Theorem is just that - a Theorem, not 'The Pythagorean Law'.
The reason - it's impossible to prove anything on an infinite set of data that isn't defined in the parameters of the data set.
A Theorem is a tested hypothesis, and these guys aren't even offering this. They're simply saying, "Look, we found an interesting pattern." As someone who's hopefully a future scientist, I'd say this is noteworthy - some scientists in the community noticed something interesting and submitted it so lots of other scientists could attempt to validate the claim.
It's not *trivial*, if it was, why hasn't it been done before?
We have always maintained that it is not random. In fact, our random number generator consistently generate numbers that are subsequently found to be NON-PRIME.
In our extensive (yet to be published) research, we have discovered that all PRIME NUMBERS are not just not random, but are found to have the property of NOT HAVING ANY DIVISORS APART FROM ITSELF AND 1. I've yet to verify with finding but it appears to be true with a correlation of 1.0 for all cases our research team have considered.
In English, you can easily use real grammar and real words. On slashdot, however, you are on your own.
There aint no pancake so thin it doesn't have two sides.
You sir, are a liar. Physicists mix quite well.
Proof: All odd numbers are prime.
Mathematitian: "1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime. The rest are prime by induction."
Physisist: "1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is not but is likely to be experimental error, 11 is prime, 13 is prime..."
Engineer: ""1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime to a reasonable degree of accuracy, 11 is prime, 13 is prime..."
Computer Scientist: "1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime, 1 is prime..."
</joke>
=Smidge=
"I have a formula P(x) that can always churn out primes, give me a number, any number and after the application of my formula, I can guarantee that it will be a prime number."
;-)
If you could do that, I have a whole bunch of NP complete problems for you to work on (and a bone to pick with a certain Mr. Godel).
x-x+7 gives a prime number for every value of x
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Well, the problem "How to prove that all odd numbers are prime" has different solutions whether you are a:
Mathematician: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and by induction we have that all the odd integers are prime.
Physicist: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is an experimental error...
Engineer: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime...
Chemist: 1 prime, 3 prime, 5 prime... hey, let's publish!
Modern physicist using renormalization: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is ... 9/3 is prime, 11 is prime, 13 is prime, 15 is ... 15/3 is prime, 17 is prime, 19 is prime, 21 is ... 21/3 is prime...
Quantum Physicist: All numbers are equally prime and non-prime until observed.
Professor: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, and the rest are left as an exercise for the student.
Confused Undergraduate: Let p be any prime number larger than 2. Then p is not divisible by 2, so p is odd. QED
Measure nontheorist: There are exactly as many odd numbers as primes (Euclid, Cantor), and exactly one even prime (namely 2), so there must be exactly one odd nonprime (namely 1).
Cosmologist: 1 is prime, yes it is true....
Computer Scientist: 1 is prime, 10 is prime, 11 is prime, 101 is prime...
Programmer: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 will be fixed in the next release, ...
C programmer: 01 is prime, 03 is prime, 05 is prime, 07 is prime, 09 is really 011 which everyone knows is prime, ...
BASIC programmer: What's a prime?
COBOL programmer: What's an odd number?
Windows programmer: 1 is prime. Wait...
Mac programmer: Now why would anyone want to know about that? That's not user friendly. You don't worry about it, we'll take care of it for you.
Bill Gates: 1. No one will ever need any more than 1.
ZX-81 Computer Programmer: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, Out of Memory.
Pentium owner: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 8.9999978 is prime...
GNU programmer: % prime
usage: prime [-nV] [--quiet] [--silent] [--version] [-e script] --catenate --concatenate | c --create | d --diff --compare | r --append | t --list | u --update | x -extract --get [ --atime-preserve ] [ -b, --block-size N ] [ -B, --read-full-blocks ] [ -C, --directory DIR ] [--checkpoint ] [ -f, --file [HOSTNAME:]F ] [ --force-local ] [ -F, --info-script F --new-volume-script F ] [-G, --incremental ] [ -g, --listed-incremental F ] [ -h, --dereference ] [ -i, --ignore-zeros ] [ --ignore-failed-read ] [ -k, --keep-old-files ] [ -K, --starting-file F ] [ -l, --one-file-system ] [ -L, --tape-length N ] [ -m, --modification-time ] [ -M, --multi-volume ] [ -N, --after-date DATE, --newer DATE ] [ -o, --old-archive, --portability ] [ -O, --to-stdout ] [ -p, --same-permissions, --preserve-permissions ] [ -P, --absolute-paths ] [ --preserve ] [ -R, --record-number ] [ [-f script-file] [--expression=script] [--file=script-file] [file...]
prime: you must specify exactly one of the r, c, t, x, or d options
For more information, type "prime --help''
Unix programmer: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, ...
Segmentation fault, Core dumped.
Computer programmer: 1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is prime, 9 is prime, 9 is prime, 9 is ...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
I suggest you upgrade your browser. Apparently it doesn't process the tag correctly.
=Smidge=