Two academics have shocked the world of Mathematics by discovering a pattern in Prime numbers.
Primes - numbers greater than 1 that are divisible only by themselves and 1 - are considered the 'building blocks ' of mathematics, because every number is either a prime or can be built by multiplying prime numbers together -84 , for example , is 2x2x3x7.
The properties of prime numbers have baffled number theorists for centuries , but mathematicians have felt safe working on the assumption they could treat prime numbers as if they occur randomly .
Now , however Kanman Soumdararajan and Robert Lemke Oliver of Stanford University in the US have discovered that when it comes to the last digit of prime numbers , there is a kind of pattern .
Apart from 2 and 5 , all prime numbers have to end in 1,3,7or 9 so that they can't be divided by 2 or 5 .So if the numbers occurred randomly as expected, it wouldn't matter what the last digit of the previous prime was.
Each of the four possibilities -1,3,7, or 9 should have an equal 25% of chance of appearing at the end of the next prime number.
But after divising a computer programto search for the first four hundred billion primes, the two mathematicians found prime numbers tend to avoid having the same last digit as their immediate predecessors-as if they hate to repeat themselves.
The pattern already being referred to as 'the conspiracy among primes"- has left mathematicians amazed that it could it could have remained undiscovered so long.
Prime Numbers-
Primes - numbers greater than 1 that are divisible only by themselves and 1 - are considered the 'building blocks ' of mathematics, because every number is either a prime or can be built by multiplying prime numbers together -84 , for example , is 2x2x3x7.
The properties of prime numbers have baffled number theorists for centuries , but mathematicians have felt safe working on the assumption they could treat prime numbers as if they occur randomly .
Now , however Kanman Soumdararajan and Robert Lemke Oliver of Stanford University in the US have discovered that when it comes to the last digit of prime numbers , there is a kind of pattern .
Apart from 2 and 5 , all prime numbers have to end in 1,3,7or 9 so that they can't be divided by 2 or 5 .So if the numbers occurred randomly as expected, it wouldn't matter what the last digit of the previous prime was.
Each of the four possibilities -1,3,7, or 9 should have an equal 25% of chance of appearing at the end of the next prime number.
But after divising a computer programto search for the first four hundred billion primes, the two mathematicians found prime numbers tend to avoid having the same last digit as their immediate predecessors-as if they hate to repeat themselves.
The pattern already being referred to as 'the conspiracy among primes"- has left mathematicians amazed that it could it could have remained undiscovered so long.
Prime Numbers-
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