Skip to main content

All Questions

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
6 votes
2 answers
804 views

Must Mersenne numbers be divisible by arbitrary large primes with exponent one?

Let $M_n$ denote the Mersenne numbers $M_n=2^n-1$. As $n$ varies, must $M_n$ be divisible by arbitrary large prime $p$ with exponent one, i.e. $p \mid M_n, p^2 \nmid M_n$? In other words, must the ...
joro's user avatar
  • 25.4k
12 votes
2 answers
4k views

How can one construct a sparse null space basis using recursive LU decomposition?

Given an $m$ by $n$ matrix $A$ I'm familiar with the standard method to compute a basis for the null space of $A$ by computing a QR factorization of $A^T$. If $A$ is large and sparse, we can use ...
Alec Jacobson's user avatar
12 votes
5 answers
2k views

Polynomials all of whose roots are rational

I have two questions about the class of integer-coefficient polynomials all of whose roots are rational. I asked this at MSE, but it attracted little interest (perhaps because it is not interesting!) ...
Joseph O'Rourke's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
980 views

$\omega(p^n - 1)$ as $n \rightarrow \infty$

Although I am also interested in the number of distinct prime factors (not counting multiplicity), today I use $\omega(m)$ to denote the number of (positive) prime factors (with multiplicity) of the ...
The Masked Avenger's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
216 views

Characterizing atomicity in a commutative domain

In Proposition 1.1 of [Math. Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc. 64 (1968), No. 2, 251-264], P.M. Cohn famously claimed (without proof) that a commutative domain is atomic if and only if it satisfies the ...
Salvo Tringali's user avatar