Encyclopedia > Sophie Germain prime

  Article Content

Sophie Germain prime

A prime p is a Sophie Germain prime if 2p+1 is also prime. They acquired significance because of Sophie Germain's proof that Fermat's last theorem is true for such primes. It is conjectured that there are infinitely many Sophie Germain primes, but like the Twin prime conjecture, this has not been proven. There are 190 Sophie Germain primes in an interval [1, 104] (SIDN A005384 (http://www.research.att.com/cgi-bin/access.cgi/as/njas/sequences/eisA.cgi?Anum=A005384)):

    2,    3,    5,   11,   23,   29,   41,   53,   83,   89,  113,  131,
  173,  179,  191,  233,  239,  251,  281,  293,  359,  419,  431,  443,
  491,  509,  593,  641,  653,  659,  683,  719,  743,  761,  809,  911,
  953, 1013, 1019, 1031, 1049, 1103, 1223, 1229, 1289, 1409, 1439, 1451,
 1481, 1499, 1511, 1559, 1583, 1601, 1733, 1811, 1889, 1901, 1931, 1973,
 2003, 2039, 2063, 2069, 2129, 2141, 2273, 2339, 2351, 2393, 2399, 2459, 
 2543, 2549, 2693, 2699, 2741, 2753, 2819, 2903, 2939, 2963, 2969, 3023,
 3299, 3329, 3359, 3389, 3413, 3449, 3491, 3539, 3593, 3623, 3761, 3779,
 3803, 3821, 3851, 3863, 3911, 4019, 4073, 4211, 4271, 4349, 4373, 4391,
 4409, 4481, 4733, 4793, 4871, 4919, 4943, 5003, 5039, 5051, 5081, 5171,
 5231, 5279, 5303, 5333, 5399, 5441, 5501, 5639, 5711, 5741, 5849, 5903,
 6053, 6101, 6113, 6131, 6173, 6263, 6269, 6323, 6329, 6449, 6491, 6521,
 6551, 6563, 6581, 6761, 6899, 6983, 7043, 7079, 7103, 7121, 7151, 7193,
 7211, 7349, 7433, 7541, 7643, 7649, 7691, 7823, 7841, 7883, 7901, 8069,
 8093, 8111, 8243, 8273, 8513, 8663, 8693, 8741, 8951, 8969, 9029, 9059,
 9221, 9293, 9371, 9419, 9473, 9479, 9539, 9629, 9689, 9791

A heuristic estimate for the number of Sophie Germain primes less than x is C2 x / (log x)2 where C2 is the twin prime constant, approximately 0.660161. For x=10,000 an estimation gives us approximately 413 Sophie Germain primes, which is still too inaccurate.

A sequence {p, 2p+1, 2(2p+1)+1, ...} of Sophie Germain primes is called a Cunningham chain[?] of the first kind.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Museums in England

... Penzance[?] Tate St. Ives[?] Cumbria Abbot Hall Art Gallery[?], Kendal[?] Beatrix Potter Gallery[?], Hawkshead[?] Cumberland Pencil Museum[?], Keswick Dock ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 22.8 ms