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Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 |
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1, 089, 533, 431, 247, 059, 310, 875, 780, 378, 922, 957,
732, 908, 036, 492, 993, 138, 195, 385, 213, 105, 561, 742, 150,
447, 308, 967, 213, 141, 717, 486, 151This 97-digit number is a prime, divisible by only 1 and itself. But, add 210 to it, and you get still another prime. Add another 210, and another prime pops up! You can do this six times and gets a series of seven consecutive primes in an arithmetic progression. Neat! And just a tiny bit of order in the distribution of primes. It took H. Dubner and H.L. Nelson about two weeks with seven computers running continuously to come up with this discovery. It seems relevant to mention that these gentlemen are semiretired and retired, respectively. (Peterson, I.; "Progressing to a set of Consecutive Primes," Science News, 148: 167, 1995)
Comment. There are other traces of order in the distribution of primes. See SF#42/332. (We are crossreferencing by SF# and by the /page number in the book Science Frontiers, in which the first 86 issues of SF are collected, organized, and indexed. Details here.