On Sun, 26 Aug 2018 at 20:32, Musatov <tomusa...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Sunday, August 26, 2018 at 2:14:29 PM UTC-5, Oscar Benjamin wrote: > > > > > > > >> On Fri, 24 Aug 2018 14:40:00 -0700, tomusatov wrote: > > > > > > > >> > > > > > > > >>> I am looking for a program able to output a set of integers > > > > > > > >>> meeting the > > > > > > > >>> following requirement: > > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > > >>> a(n) is the minimum k > 0 such that n*2^k - 3 is prime, or 0 > > > > > > > >>> if no such > > > > > > > >>> k exists > > > > > > > >>> > > > > > > > >>> Could anyone get me started? (I am an amateur) > > > > Fair enough. So finding a(n) when a(n)!=0 is straight-forward (simply > > loop through testing k=1,2...) but the issue is determining for any > > given n whether a(n)=0 i.e. that there does not exist k such that > > n*2^k-3 is prime. > > > > Perhaps if you explain how you know that > > a(72726958979572419805016319140106929109473069209) = 0 > > then that would suggest a way to code it. > > > Oscar, I simply asked someone and they provided me the number. I know they > often use Maple, but I was interested in Python. > He also said some of the n are prime by Dirichlet's theorem. One is > 8236368172492875810638652252525796530412199592269.
If it is possible at all then it is certainly possible to do this in Python but only for someone who knows the necessary maths. The purpose of computers in these kinds of problems is that they are much faster at number-crunching. You still need to know how (at least in principle) you would do this by hand in order to program it in Python or most likely anything else. I don't think anyone here knows the answer to the mathematical question "how do I prove that a(n)=0 for some n?". If you knew the answer to that question then I'm sure many people could help you write code for it. Without that I think you need to go back to your mathematician friends or do some more reading. Are you sure that the problem you have posed here is solvable (i.e. that whether or not a(n)=0 is decidable for any n)? -- Oscar -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
