2006-08-14 04:02:23 · 12 answers · asked by allnatuarllyrefreshing 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Mathematics
There is no pattern to prime numbers. That is what makes them so valuable as "keys" in codes... since large prime numbers have to be computed by brute force.
There are algorithms that will include all the primes as you calculate upward... unfortunately they all pick up lots of non-prime numbers as well which limits their usefulness.
2006-08-14 04:07:00 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
I would love to know this also! I have been studying primes and look for the pattern for many years. There is an almost musical "beat" to the numbers but no actual "Pattern" Prime numbers can sometimes be found by taking a known prime number such as 7 and doubling it (14) then subtract 1 (13....also a prime number)
2006-08-14 04:10:25 · answer #2 · answered by newsgirlinos2 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There isn't really a pattern but they aren't exactly distributed randomly. A larger number is less likely to be prime than a smaller number for example. A lot of study has been done on the distribution of prime numbers, counting the number of them that are less than a given number. This count behaves rather well and can be modeled closely by a simple function. These studies are tied to a very famous open question in math known as the Riemann hypothesis.
2006-08-14 22:23:24 · answer #3 · answered by TA Timmy 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
There's no simple pattern to prime numbers. Although we think of the primes as building blocks, there does not appear to be a simple algebraic formula for calculating the list of all primes. Given an integer n, the only way to determine if it is prime is to try to divide it by every prime between 1 and the square root of n. However, there are a couple different complex (and incomplete) patterns in primes such as Ulam's Rose or the factoral sequence of primes. You can find more information about these at the sites below.
2006-08-14 04:19:23 · answer #4 · answered by Otis T 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
There is no known pattern to prime numbers, but it is a widely studied area of mathematics. Many encryption algorithms rely on the assumption that there is no pattern to primes. What is known (conjectured, actually) is the distribution of primes, i.e. the answer to the question "how many primes are less than or equal to N?" (The proof of this is worth a million dollars)
For more interesting open questions about primes, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldbach%27s_conjecture
2006-08-14 05:22:30 · answer #5 · answered by David B 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
No easy pattern. The largest prime (to date) was computed this year with the help of some 30,000 PC's and it took nearly a week.
It something like (2^20,996,011 -1).
2006-08-14 07:24:32 · answer #6 · answered by davidosterberg1 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes there is a pattern for prime numbers
http://www.fermi.franken.de/wschildbach/primes.html
2006-08-14 04:24:38 · answer #7 · answered by kae 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
no, but it is easy to understand, prime number can only be divided by 1, and themselves and not end up in fractions.
example, 3 can only be divided by 1 or 3 to get whole numbers. Any other number would produce a fraction.
2006-08-17 09:39:22 · answer #8 · answered by chris m 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No. There isn't any pattern to prime numbers, no matter what immortal abi says.
Sure wish there was. I'd make Goldbachs conjecture *so* easy to prove
Doug
2006-08-14 04:19:41 · answer #9 · answered by doug_donaghue 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is a pattern to everything.
2006-08-14 04:08:29 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋