Prime numberA prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways of writing it as a product, 1 × 5 or 5 × 1, involve 5 itself. However, 4 is composite because it is a product (2 × 2) in which both numbers are smaller than 4.
DivisorIn mathematics, a divisor of an integer , also called a factor of , is an integer that may be multiplied by some integer to produce . In this case, one also says that is a multiple of An integer is divisible or evenly divisible by another integer if is a divisor of ; this implies dividing by leaves no remainder. An integer n is divisible by a nonzero integer m if there exists an integer k such that . This is written as Other ways of saying the same thing are that m divides n, m is a divisor of n, m is a factor of n, and n is a multiple of m.
Zero divisorIn abstract algebra, an element a of a ring R is called a left zero divisor if there exists a nonzero x in R such that ax = 0, or equivalently if the map from R to R that sends x to ax is not injective. Similarly, an element a of a ring is called a right zero divisor if there exists a nonzero y in R such that ya = 0. This is a partial case of divisibility in rings. An element that is a left or a right zero divisor is simply called a zero divisor.
Integer factorizationIn number theory, integer factorization is the decomposition, when possible, of a positive integer into a product of smaller integers. If the factors are further restricted to be prime numbers, the process is called prime factorization, and includes the test whether the given integer is prime (in this case, one has a "product" of a single factor). When the numbers are sufficiently large, no efficient non-quantum integer factorization algorithm is known. However, it has not been proven that such an algorithm does not exist.
Prime omega functionIn number theory, the prime omega functions and count the number of prime factors of a natural number Thereby (little omega) counts each distinct prime factor, whereas the related function (big omega) counts the total number of prime factors of honoring their multiplicity (see arithmetic function). That is, if we have a prime factorization of of the form for distinct primes (), then the respective prime omega functions are given by and . These prime factor counting functions have many important number theoretic relations.
Unitary divisorIn mathematics, a natural number a is a unitary divisor (or Hall divisor) of a number b if a is a divisor of b and if a and are coprime, having no common factor other than 1. Thus, 5 is a unitary divisor of 60, because 5 and have only 1 as a common factor, while 6 is a divisor but not a unitary divisor of 60, as 6 and have a common factor other than 1, namely 2. 1 is a unitary divisor of every natural number. Equivalently, a divisor a of b is a unitary divisor if and only if every prime factor of a has the same multiplicity in a as it has in b.
Legendre symbolIn number theory, the Legendre symbol is a multiplicative function with values 1, −1, 0 that is a quadratic character modulo of an odd prime number p: its value at a (nonzero) quadratic residue mod p is 1 and at a non-quadratic residue (non-residue) is −1. Its value at zero is 0. The Legendre symbol was introduced by Adrien-Marie Legendre in 1798 in the course of his attempts at proving the law of quadratic reciprocity. Generalizations of the symbol include the Jacobi symbol and Dirichlet characters of higher order.
Number theoryNumber theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences—and number theory is the queen of mathematics." Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example, rational numbers), or defined as generalizations of the integers (for example, algebraic integers).
Roger Heath-BrownDavid Rodney "Roger" Heath-Brown (born 12 October 1952) is a British mathematician working in the field of analytic number theory. He was an undergraduate and graduate student of Trinity College, Cambridge; his research supervisor was Alan Baker. In 1979 he moved to the University of Oxford, where from 1999 he held a professorship in pure mathematics. He retired in 2016. Heath-Brown is known for many striking results. He proved that there are infinitely many prime numbers of the form x3 + 2y3. In collaboration with S.
Greatest common divisorIn mathematics, the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two or more integers, which are not all zero, is the largest positive integer that divides each of the integers. For two integers x, y, the greatest common divisor of x and y is denoted . For example, the GCD of 8 and 12 is 4, that is, . In the name "greatest common divisor", the adjective "greatest" may be replaced by "highest", and the word "divisor" may be replaced by "factor", so that other names include highest common factor (hcf), etc.
