Brun's theorem | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

In number theory, Brun's theorem states that the sum of the reciprocals of the twin primes (pairs of prime numbers which differ by 2) converges to a finite value known as Brun's constant, usually denoted by B2 . Brun's theorem was proved by Viggo Brun in 1919, and it has historical importance in the introduction of sieve methods. The convergence of the sum of reciprocals of twin primes follows from bounds on the density of the sequence of twin primes. Let denote the number of primes p ≤ x for which p + 2 is also prime (i.e. is the number of twin primes with the smaller at most x). Then, we have That is, twin primes are less frequent than prime numbers by nearly a logarithmic factor. It follows from this bound that the sum of the reciprocals of the twin primes converges, or stated in other words, the twin primes form a small set. In explicit terms, the sum either has finitely many terms or has infinitely many terms but is convergent: its value is known as Brun's constant. If it were the case that the sum diverged, then that fact would imply that there are infinitely many twin primes. Because the sum of the reciprocals of the twin primes instead converges, it is not possible to conclude from this result that there are finitely many or infinitely many twin primes. Brun's constant could be an irrational number only if there are infinitely many twin primes. The series converges extremely slowly. Thomas Nicely remarks that after summing the first billion (109) terms, the relative error is still more than 5%. By calculating the twin primes up to 1014 (and discovering the Pentium FDIV bug along the way), Nicely heuristically estimated Brun's constant to be 1.902160578. Nicely has extended his computation to 1.6 as of 18 January 2010 but this is not the largest computation of its type. In 2002, Pascal Sebah and Patrick Demichel used all twin primes up to 1016 to give the estimate that B2 ≈ 1.902160583104. Hence, The last is based on extrapolation from the sum 1.830484424658... for the twin primes below 1016.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (4)

Related lectures (2)

Martingales and Conditional Expectations MATH-467: Probabilistic methods in combinatorics

Explores Brun's Sieve, Martingales, and Conditional Expectations in probability theory.

Goodness-of-fit Tests in Statistics MATH-236: Probability and statistics II

Explores goodness-of-fit tests, X² tests, and independence tests in statistics, with practical examples and applications.

Brun sieve

In the field of number theory, the Brun sieve (also called Brun's pure sieve) is a technique for estimating the size of "sifted sets" of positive integers which satisfy a set of conditions which are expressed by congruences. It was developed by Viggo Brun in 1915 and later generalized to the fundamental lemma of sieve theory by others. In terms of sieve theory the Brun sieve is of combinatorial type; that is, it derives from a careful use of the inclusion–exclusion principle. Let be a finite set of positive integers.

Prime quadruplet

In number theory, a prime quadruplet (sometimes called prime quadruple) is a set of four prime numbers of the form {p,\ p+2,\ p+6,\ p+8}. This represents the closest possible grouping of four primes larger than 3, and is the only prime constellation of length 4. The first eight prime quadruplets are: {5, 7, 11, 13}, {11, 13, 17, 19}, {101, 103, 107, 109}, {191, 193, 197, 199}, {821, 823, 827, 829}, {1481, 1483, 1487, 1489}, {1871, 1873, 1877, 1879}, {2081, 2083, 2087, 2089} All prime quadruplets except {5, 7, 11, 13} are of the form {30n + 11, 30n + 13, 30n + 17, 30n + 19} for some integer n.

Twin prime

A 'twin prime is a prime number that is either 2 less or 2 more than another prime number—for example, either member of the twin prime pair or In other words, a twin prime is a prime that has a prime gap of two. Sometimes the term twin prime is used for a pair of twin primes; an alternative name for this is prime twin' or prime pair. Twin primes become increasingly rare as one examines larger ranges, in keeping with the general tendency of gaps between adjacent primes to become larger as the numbers themselves get larger.