Re: Sieve distinction, prime counting

mm_at_nowhere.net
Date: 03/03/05 

Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:05:20 +0100

David C. Ullrich wrote:

> Possibly true - if so there's a _reason_ for that. And the
> reason is not that you're the first person to realize that
> you can test whether k is prime by checking whether pi(k+1)
> equals pi(k).

As a matter of fact, no, the equality cannot prove anything.
We have pi(7) = pi(8) but we also have p(8) = pi(9). To check
whether k is prime, one has to check pi(k) - pi(k-1) > 0.
But concretly, one should use an other method. This one is
... I don't find the word :-)

mm

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