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46 votes
4 answers
8k views

Why could Mertens not prove the prime number theorem?

We know that $$ \sum_{n \le x}\frac{1}{n\ln n} = \ln\ln x + c_1 + O(1/x) $$ where $c_1$ is a constant. Again Mertens' theorem says that the primes $p$ satisfy $$ \sum_{p \le x}\frac{1}{p} = \ln\ln ...
Nilotpal Kanti Sinha's user avatar
11 votes
1 answer
700 views

Squarefree numbers $n$ such that $432n+1$ is also squarefree

This is a second attempt (see Primes $p$ such that $432 p +1$ is prime) Is the set of squarefree numbers $n$ such that $n(432 n+1)$ is also squarefree known to be infinite? Fact: the number of such ...
user21's user avatar
  • 123
36 votes
2 answers
7k views

Why do primes dislike dividing the sum of all the preceding primes?

I was investigating primes with the property that the sum of the first $n$ primes is divisible by $p_n$. It turns out that these primes are extremely extremely rare. For primes less than $10^9$, I ...
Nilotpal Kanti Sinha's user avatar
32 votes
3 answers
8k views

Ideas in the elementary proof of the prime number theorem (Selberg / Erdős)

I'm reading the elementary proof of prime number theorem (Selberg / Erdős, around 1949). One key step is to prove that, with $\vartheta(x) = \sum_{p\leq x} \log p$, $$(1) \qquad\qquad \vartheta(x) \...
Basj's user avatar
  • 587
13 votes
4 answers
2k views

Proving Mertens' theorem using the prime number theorem

Mertens' Theorem states that $$\sum_{p \leq x}\frac{1}{p} = \log \log x + M + O(1/\log x).$$ This is weaker than the prime number theorem; in fact according to the Wikipedia page, the prime number ...
Daniel Loughran's user avatar
7 votes
2 answers
2k views

Legendre's Constant

In a couple of web pages, I see that Legendre's constant is defined to be $\lim_{n \to \infty} (\pi(n) - (n/\log(n)))$ (for example, here and here). Actually the first uses $\lim_{n \to \infty} (\log(...
user304582's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
860 views

Lower bounds on the error term of the prime number theorem

Are there any lower bounds on the error term for the prime number theorem, or in other words, is there a nontrivial $f$ s.t. $$f(x)\ll |\psi(x) - x|$$ where $\psi$ is the Chebyshev function.
Mayank Pandey's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

What is the best currently proven bounds on prime gaps?

I did some digging around on the internet but I found tons of different equations on both lower and upper bounds for the largest possible prime gap g(n). I was wondering what are currently the best ...
Sturdyplum's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
283 views

Explicit bounds on number of primes of given size

How many prime numbers of $b$ bits are there? Beyond the prime number theorem, one can give explicit bounds on the number of primes below some integer $n$, or in a given interval. For instance, Rosser ...
Bruno's user avatar
  • 456
2 votes
1 answer
461 views

How essential is the vanishing of the Dirichlet $L$-functions to Dirichlet's theorem on primes in arithmetic progressions?

I seem to recall that the prime number theorem (PNT) is equivalent to the fact that the Riemann zeta function $\zeta(s)$ is non-zero on all of $\text{Re}(s) = 1$ (see https://math.stackexchange.com/...
D.R.'s user avatar
  • 833
1 vote
1 answer
317 views

An explicit value for a bound proof

I saw a proof that $|p_n - li^{-1}(n)| \leq n e^{-c \sqrt{\ln(n)}} $, without saying anything about $c$ ! My questions is, what the explicit value of $c$ ?? It just says for some number $c$ without ...
user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
867 views

$n$th prime: a better approximation

Let $p_n$ be the $n$-th prime, then from Wikipedia I got that $p_n \approx n \left(\ln n + \ln \ln n -1 + \frac{\ln \ln n-2}{\ln n}+\frac{6\ln \ln n-( \ln \ln n)^2-11}{\ln^2 n} \right)$. What is a ...
user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
461 views

Primes $p$ such that $432 p +1$ is prime [closed]

Is the set of prime numbers $p$ such that $432 p + 1$ is also prime infinite? It doesn't follow from Dirichlet's theorem as far as I can tell.
User12324's user avatar