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mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, the prime number theorem (PNT) describes the asymptotic distribution of the
prime number A 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 way ...
s among the positive integers. It formalizes the intuitive idea that primes become less common as they become larger by precisely quantifying the rate at which this occurs. The theorem was proved independently by Jacques Hadamard and Charles Jean de la Vallée Poussin in 1896 using ideas introduced by Bernhard Riemann (in particular, the
Riemann zeta function The Riemann zeta function or Euler–Riemann zeta function, denoted by the Greek letter ( zeta), is a mathematical function of a complex variable defined as \zeta(s) = \sum_^\infty \frac = \frac + \frac + \frac + \cdots for \operatorname(s) ...
). The first such distribution found is , where is the
prime-counting function In mathematics, the prime-counting function is the function counting the number of prime numbers less than or equal to some real number ''x''. It is denoted by (''x'') (unrelated to the number ). History Of great interest in number theory is t ...
(the number of primes less than or equal to ''N'') and is the
natural logarithm The natural logarithm of a number is its logarithm to the base of the mathematical constant , which is an irrational and transcendental number approximately equal to . The natural logarithm of is generally written as , , or sometimes, if ...
of . This means that for large enough , the
probability Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an Event (probability theory), event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and ...
that a random integer not greater than is prime is very close to . Consequently, a random integer with at most digits (for large enough ) is about half as likely to be prime as a random integer with at most digits. For example, among the positive integers of at most 1000 digits, about one in 2300 is prime (), whereas among positive integers of at most 2000 digits, about one in 4600 is prime (). In other words, the average gap between consecutive prime numbers among the first integers is roughly .


Statement

Let be the
prime-counting function In mathematics, the prime-counting function is the function counting the number of prime numbers less than or equal to some real number ''x''. It is denoted by (''x'') (unrelated to the number ). History Of great interest in number theory is t ...
defined to be the number of primes less than or equal to , for any real number . For example, because there are four prime numbers (2, 3, 5 and 7) less than or equal to 10. The prime number theorem then states that is a good approximation to (where log here means the natural logarithm), in the sense that the
limit Limit or Limits may refer to: Arts and media * ''Limit'' (manga), a manga by Keiko Suenobu * ''Limit'' (film), a South Korean film * Limit (music), a way to characterize harmony * "Limit" (song), a 2016 single by Luna Sea * "Limits", a 2019 ...
of the ''quotient'' of the two functions and as increases without bound is 1: : \lim_\frac = 1, known as the asymptotic law of distribution of prime numbers. Using asymptotic notation this result can be restated as :\pi(x)\sim \frac. This notation (and the theorem) does ''not'' say anything about the limit of the ''difference'' of the two functions as increases without bound. Instead, the theorem states that approximates in the sense that the relative error of this approximation approaches 0 as increases without bound. The prime number theorem is equivalent to the statement that the th prime number satisfies :p_n \sim n\log(n), the asymptotic notation meaning, again, that the relative error of this approximation approaches 0 as increases without bound. For example, the th prime number is , and ()log() rounds to , a relative error of about 6.4%. On the other hand, the following asymptotic relations are logically equivalent: :\begin \lim_\frac&=1,\\ \lim_\frac&=1. \end As outlined below, the prime number theorem is also equivalent to :\lim_ \fracx = \lim_ \fracx=1, where and are the first and the second Chebyshev functions respectively, and to :\lim_ \frac=0, where M(x)=\sum_ \mu(n) is the Mertens function.


History of the proof of the asymptotic law of prime numbers

Based on the tables by
Anton Felkel Anton Felkel (26 April 1740, Kamenz, Silesia – c. 1800, possibly in Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.0 ...
and Jurij Vega, Adrien-Marie Legendre conjectured in 1797 or 1798 that is approximated by the function , where and are unspecified constants. In the second edition of his book on number theory (1808) he then made a more precise conjecture, with and .
Carl Friedrich Gauss Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; german: Gauß ; la, Carolus Fridericus Gauss; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician and physicist who made significant contributions to many fields in mathematics and science. Sometimes refe ...
considered the same question at age 15 or 16 "in the year 1792 or 1793", according to his own recollection in 1849. In 1838 Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet came up with his own approximating function, the logarithmic integral (under the slightly different form of a series, which he communicated to Gauss). Both Legendre's and Dirichlet's formulas imply the same conjectured asymptotic equivalence of and stated above, although it turned out that Dirichlet's approximation is considerably better if one considers the differences instead of quotients. In two papers from 1848 and 1850, the Russian mathematician Pafnuty Chebyshev attempted to prove the asymptotic law of distribution of prime numbers. His work is notable for the use of the zeta function , for real values of the argument "", as in works of
Leonhard Euler Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...
, as early as 1737. Chebyshev's papers predated Riemann's celebrated memoir of 1859, and he succeeded in proving a slightly weaker form of the asymptotic law, namely, that if the limit as goes to infinity of exists at all, then it is necessarily equal to one. He was able to prove unconditionally that this ratio is bounded above and below by two explicitly given constants near 1, for all sufficiently large . Although Chebyshev's paper did not prove the Prime Number Theorem, his estimates for were strong enough for him to prove Bertrand's postulate that there exists a prime number between and for any integer . An important paper concerning the distribution of prime numbers was Riemann's 1859 memoir " On the Number of Primes Less Than a Given Magnitude", the only paper he ever wrote on the subject. Riemann introduced new ideas into the subject, chiefly that the distribution of prime numbers is intimately connected with the zeros of the analytically extended Riemann zeta function of a complex variable. In particular, it is in this paper that the idea to apply methods of complex analysis to the study of the real function originates. Extending Riemann's ideas, two proofs of the asymptotic law of the distribution of prime numbers were found independently by Jacques Hadamard and Charles Jean de la Vallée Poussin and appeared in the same year (1896). Both proofs used methods from complex analysis, establishing as a main step of the proof that the
Riemann zeta function The Riemann zeta function or Euler–Riemann zeta function, denoted by the Greek letter ( zeta), is a mathematical function of a complex variable defined as \zeta(s) = \sum_^\infty \frac = \frac + \frac + \frac + \cdots for \operatorname(s) ...
is nonzero for all complex values of the variable that have the form with . During the 20th century, the theorem of Hadamard and de la Vallée Poussin also became known as the Prime Number Theorem. Several different proofs of it were found, including the "elementary" proofs of Atle Selberg and
Paul Erdős Paul Erdős ( hu, Erdős Pál ; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. pursued and proposed problems in ...
(1949). Hadamard's and de la Vallée Poussin's original proofs are long and elaborate; later proofs introduced various simplifications through the use of Tauberian theorems but remained difficult to digest. A short proof was discovered in 1980 by the American mathematician Donald J. Newman. Newman's proof is arguably the simplest known proof of the theorem, although it is non-elementary in the sense that it uses Cauchy's integral theorem from complex analysis.


Proof sketch

Here is a sketch of the proof referred to in one of
Terence Tao Terence Chi-Shen Tao (; born 17 July 1975) is an Australian-American mathematician. He is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he holds the James and Carol Collins chair. His research includes ...
's lectures. Like most proofs of the PNT, it starts out by reformulating the problem in terms of a less intuitive, but better-behaved, prime-counting function. The idea is to count the primes (or a related set such as the set of prime powers) with ''weights'' to arrive at a function with smoother asymptotic behavior. The most common such generalized counting function is the Chebyshev function , defined by :\psi(x) = \!\!\!\! \sum_\stackrel \!\!\!\! \log p \; . This is sometimes written as :\psi(x) = \sum_ \Lambda(n) \; , where is the von Mangoldt function, namely :\Lambda(n) = \begin \log p & \text n = p^k \text p \text k \ge 1, \\ 0 & \text \end It is now relatively easy to check that the PNT is equivalent to the claim that :\lim_ \frac = 1 \; . Indeed, this follows from the easy estimates :\psi(x) = \sum_\stackrel \log p \left\lfloor \frac \right\rfloor \le \sum_\stackrel \log x = \pi(x)\log x and (using big notation) for any , :\psi(x) \ge \!\!\!\!\sum_\stackrel\!\!\!\! \log p\ge\!\!\!\!\sum_\stackrel\!\!\!\!(1-\varepsilon)\log x=(1-\varepsilon)\left(\pi(x)+O\left(x^\right)\right)\log x \; . The next step is to find a useful representation for . Let be the Riemann zeta function. It can be shown that is related to the von Mangoldt function , and hence to , via the relation :-\frac = \sum_^\infty \Lambda(n) \, n^ \; . A delicate analysis of this equation and related properties of the zeta function, using the Mellin transform and
Perron's formula In mathematics, and more particularly in analytic number theory, Perron's formula is a formula due to Oskar Perron to calculate the sum of an arithmetic function, by means of an inverse Mellin transform. Statement Let \ be an arithmetic function, a ...
, shows that for non-integer the equation :\psi(x) = x \; - \; \log(2\pi) \; - \sum\limits_ \frac holds, where the sum is over all zeros (trivial and nontrivial) of the zeta function. This striking formula is one of the so-called explicit formulas of number theory, and is already suggestive of the result we wish to prove, since the term (claimed to be the correct asymptotic order of ) appears on the right-hand side, followed by (presumably) lower-order asymptotic terms. The next step in the proof involves a study of the zeros of the zeta function. The trivial zeros −2, −4, −6, −8, ... can be handled separately: :\sum_^\infty \frac = -\frac\log\left(1-\frac\right), which vanishes for large . The nontrivial zeros, namely those on the critical strip , can potentially be of an asymptotic order comparable to the main term if , so we need to show that all zeros have real part strictly less than 1.


Non-vanishing on

To do this, we take for granted that is meromorphic in the half-plane , and is analytic there except for a simple pole at , and that there is a product formula :\zeta(s)=\prod_p\frac for . This product formula follows from the existence of unique prime factorization of integers, and shows that is never zero in this region, so that its logarithm is defined there and :\log\zeta(s)=-\sum_p\log \left(1-p^ \right)=\sum_\frac \; . Write ; then :\big, \zeta(x+iy) \big, = \exp\left( \sum_ \frac \right) \; . Now observe the identity : 3 + 4 \cos \phi+ \cos 2 \phi = 2 ( 1 + \cos \phi )^2\ge 0 \; , so that :\left, \zeta(x)^3 \zeta(x+iy)^4 \zeta(x+2iy) \ = \exp\left( \sum_ \frac \right) \ge 1 for all . Suppose now that . Certainly is not zero, since has a simple pole at . Suppose that and let tend to 1 from above. Since \zeta(s) has a simple pole at and stays analytic, the left hand side in the previous inequality tends to 0, a contradiction. Finally, we can conclude that the PNT is heuristically true. To rigorously complete the proof there are still serious technicalities to overcome, due to the fact that the summation over zeta zeros in the explicit formula for does not converge absolutely but only conditionally and in a "principal value" sense. There are several ways around this problem but many of them require rather delicate complex-analytic estimates. Edwards's book provides the details. Another method is to use Ikehara's Tauberian theorem, though this theorem is itself quite hard to prove. D.J. Newman observed that the full strength of Ikehara's theorem is not needed for the prime number theorem, and one can get away with a special case that is much easier to prove.


Newman's proof of the prime number theorem

D. J. Newman gives a quick proof of the prime number theorem (PNT). The proof is "non-elementary" by virtue of relying on complex analysis, but uses only elementary techniques from a first course in the subject: Cauchy's integral formula, Cauchy's integral theorem and estimates of complex integrals. Here is a brief sketch of this proof. See for the complete details. The proof uses the same preliminaries as in the previous section except instead of the function \psi, the Chebyshev function \quad \vartheta(x) = \sum_ \log p is used, which is obtained by dropping some of the terms from the series for \psi. It is easy to show that the PNT is equivalent to \lim _ \vartheta(x)/x = 1. Likewise instead of - \frac the function \Phi(s) = \sum_ \log p\,\, p^ is used, which is obtained by dropping some terms in the series for - \frac . The functions \Phi(s) and -\zeta'(s)/\zeta(s) differ by a function holomorphic on \Re s = 1. Since, as was shown in the previous section, \zeta(s) has no zeroes on the line \Re s = 1 , \Phi(s) - \frac 1 has no singularities on \Re s = 1. One further piece of information needed in Newman's proof, and which is the key to the estimates in his simple method, is that \vartheta(x)/x is bounded. This is proved using an ingenious and easy method due to Chebyshev. Integration by parts shows how \vartheta(x) and \Phi(s) are related. For \Re s > 1, : \Phi(s) = \int _1^\infty x^ d\vartheta(x) = s\int_1^\infty \vartheta(x)x^\,dx = s \int_0^\infty \vartheta(e^t) e^ \, dt. Newman's method proves the PNT by showing the integral : I = \int_0 ^\infty \left( \frac -1 \right) \, dt. converges, and therefore the integrand goes to zero as t \to \infty, which is the PNT. In general, the convergence of the improper integral does not imply that the integrand goes to zero at infinity, since it may oscillate, but since \vartheta is increasing, it is easy to show in this case. To show the convergence of I , for \Re z > 0 let : g_T(z) = \int_0^T f(t) e^\, dt and g(z) = \int_0^\infty f(t) e^\, dt where f(t) = \frac -1 then : \lim_ g_T(z) = g(z) = \frac - \frac 1 \quad \quad \text \quad z = s -1 which is equal to a function holomorphic on the line \Re z = 0 . The convergence of the integral I , and thus the PNT, is proved by showing that \lim_ g_T(0) = g(0). This involves change of order of limits since it can be written \lim_ \lim_ g_T(z) = \lim_ \lim_g_T(z) and therefore classified as a Tauberian theorem. The difference g(0) - g_T(0) is expressed using Cauchy's integral formula and then shown to be small for T large by estimating the integrand. Fix R>0 and \delta >0 such that g(z) is holomorphic in the region where , z, \le R \text \Re z \ge - \delta, and let C be the boundary of this region. Since 0 is in the interior of the region, Cauchy's integral formula gives : g(0) - g_T(0) = \frac 1 \int_C \left( g(z) - g_T(z) \right ) \frac z = \frac 1 \int_C \left( g(z) - g_T(z) \right ) F(z)\frac z where F(z) = e^\left( 1 + \frac \right) is the factor introduced by Newman, which does not change the integral since F is entire and F(0) =1. To estimate the integral, break the contour C into two parts, C = C_+ + C_- where C_+ = C \cap \left \ and C_- \cap \left \. Then g(0)- g_T(0) = \int_\int_T^\infty H(t,z) dt dz - \int_\int_0^T H(t,z) dt dz + \int_g(z)F(z)\frac where H(t,z) = f(t)e^F(z)/2 \pi i. Since \vartheta(x)/x, and hence f(t) , is bounded, let B be an upper bound for the absolute value of f(t). This bound together with the estimate , F, \le 2 \exp(T \Re z), \Re z, /R for , z, = R gives that the first integral in absolute value is \le B/R. The integrand over C_- in the second integral is entire, so by Cauchy's integral theorem, the contour C_- can be modified to a semicircle of radius R in the left half-plane without changing the integral, and the same argument as for the first integral gives the absolute value of the second integral is \le B/R. Finally, letting T \to \infty , the third integral goes to zero since e^ and hence F goes to zero on the contour. Combining the two estimates and the limit get : \limsup_, g(0) - g_T(0) , \le \frac R. This holds for any R so \lim_ g_T(0) = g(0), and the PNT follows.


Prime-counting function in terms of the logarithmic integral

In a handwritten note on a reprint of his 1838 paper "", which he mailed to Gauss, Dirichlet conjectured (under a slightly different form appealing to a series rather than an integral) that an even better approximation to is given by the offset logarithmic integral function , defined by : \operatorname(x) = \int_2^x \frac = \operatorname(x) - \operatorname(2). Indeed, this integral is strongly suggestive of the notion that the "density" of primes around should be . This function is related to the logarithm by the asymptotic expansion : \operatorname(x) \sim \frac \sum_^\infty \frac = \frac + \frac + \frac + \cdots So, the prime number theorem can also be written as . In fact, in another paper in 1899 de la Vallée Poussin proved that : \pi(x) = \operatorname (x) + O \left(x e^\right) \quad\text x \to \infty for some positive constant , where is the big notation. This has been improved to :\pi(x) = \operatorname (x) + O \left(x \exp \left( -\frac \right) \right) where A = 0.2098. In 2016, Trudgian proved an explicit upper bound for the difference between \pi(x) and \operatorname(x): :\big, \pi(x) - \operatorname(x) \big, \le 0.2795 \frac \exp \left( -\sqrt \right) for x \ge 229. The connection between the Riemann zeta function and is one reason the
Riemann hypothesis In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part . Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in ...
has considerable importance in number theory: if established, it would yield a far better estimate of the error involved in the prime number theorem than is available today. More specifically,
Helge von Koch Niels Fabian Helge von Koch (25 January 1870 – 11 March 1924) was a Swedish mathematician who gave his name to the famous fractal known as the Koch snowflake, one of the earliest fractal curves to be described. He was born to Swedish nobility. ...
showed in 1901 that if the Riemann hypothesis is true, the error term in the above relation can be improved to : \pi(x) = \operatorname (x) + O\left(\sqrt x \log x\right) (this last estimate is in fact equivalent to the Riemann hypothesis). The constant involved in the big notation was estimated in 1976 by Lowell Schoenfeld: assuming the Riemann hypothesis, :\big, \pi(x) - \operatorname(x)\big, < \frac for all . He also derived a similar bound for the Chebyshev prime-counting function : :\big, \psi(x) - x\big, < \frac for all  . This latter bound has been shown to express a variance to mean
power law In statistics, a power law is a Function (mathematics), functional relationship between two quantities, where a Relative change and difference, relative change in one quantity results in a proportional relative change in the other quantity, inde ...
(when regarded as a random function over the integers) and   noise and to also correspond to the Tweedie compound Poisson distribution. (The Tweedie distributions represent a family of scale invariant distributions that serve as foci of convergence for a generalization of the
central limit theorem In probability theory, the central limit theorem (CLT) establishes that, in many situations, when independent random variables are summed up, their properly normalized sum tends toward a normal distribution even if the original variables thems ...
.) The logarithmic integral is larger than for "small" values of . This is because it is (in some sense) counting not primes, but prime powers, where a power of a prime is counted as of a prime. This suggests that should usually be larger than by roughly \ \tfrac \operatorname(\sqrt)\ , and in particular should always be larger than . However, in 1914,
J. E. Littlewood John Edensor Littlewood (9 June 1885 – 6 September 1977) was a British mathematician. He worked on topics relating to mathematical analysis, analysis, number theory, and differential equations, and had lengthy collaborations with G. H. H ...
proved that \ \pi(x) - \operatorname(x)\ changes sign infinitely often. The first value of where exceeds is probably around ; see the article on Skewes' number for more details. (On the other hand, the offset logarithmic integral is smaller than already for ; indeed, , while .)


Elementary proofs

In the first half of the twentieth century, some mathematicians (notably G. H. Hardy) believed that there exists a hierarchy of proof methods in mathematics depending on what sorts of numbers (
integer An integer is the number zero (), a positive natural number (, , , etc.) or a negative integer with a minus sign ( −1, −2, −3, etc.). The negative numbers are the additive inverses of the corresponding positive numbers. In the language ...
s, reals, complex) a proof requires, and that the prime number theorem (PNT) is a "deep" theorem by virtue of requiring complex analysis. This belief was somewhat shaken by a proof of the PNT based on Wiener's tauberian theorem, though this could be set aside if Wiener's theorem were deemed to have a "depth" equivalent to that of complex variable methods. In March 1948, Atle Selberg established, by "elementary" means, the asymptotic formula :\vartheta ( x )\log ( x ) + \sum\limits_ \ \vartheta \left( \right) = 2x\log ( x ) + O( x ) where :\vartheta ( x ) = \sum\limits_ for primes . By July of that year, Selberg and
Paul Erdős Paul Erdős ( hu, Erdős Pál ; 26 March 1913 – 20 September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. pursued and proposed problems in ...
had each obtained elementary proofs of the PNT, both using Selberg's asymptotic formula as a starting point. These proofs effectively laid to rest the notion that the PNT was "deep" in that sense, and showed that technically "elementary" methods were more powerful than had been believed to be the case. On the history of the elementary proofs of the PNT, including the Erdős–Selberg priority dispute, see an article by Dorian Goldfeld. There is some debate about the significance of Erdős and Selberg's result. There is no rigorous and widely accepted definition of the notion of elementary proof in number theory, so it is not clear exactly in what sense their proof is "elementary". Although it does not use complex analysis, it is in fact much more technical than the standard proof of PNT. One possible definition of an "elementary" proof is "one that can be carried out in first-order
Peano arithmetic In mathematical logic, the Peano axioms, also known as the Dedekind–Peano axioms or the Peano postulates, are axioms for the natural numbers presented by the 19th century Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano. These axioms have been used nearly u ...
." There are number-theoretic statements (for example, the Paris–Harrington theorem) provable using second order but not first-order methods, but such theorems are rare to date. Erdős and Selberg's proof can certainly be formalized in Peano arithmetic, and in 1994, Charalambos Cornaros and Costas Dimitracopoulos proved that their proof can be formalized in a very weak fragment of PA, namely . However, this does not address the question of whether or not the standard proof of PNT can be formalized in PA.


Computer verifications

In 2005, Avigad ''et al.'' employed the Isabelle theorem prover to devise a computer-verified variant of the Erdős–Selberg proof of the PNT. This was the first machine-verified proof of the PNT. Avigad chose to formalize the Erdős–Selberg proof rather than an analytic one because while Isabelle's library at the time could implement the notions of limit, derivative, and transcendental function, it had almost no theory of integration to speak of. In 2009,
John Harrison John Harrison ( – 24 March 1776) was a self-educated English carpenter and clockmaker who invented the marine chronometer, a long-sought-after device for solving the problem of calculating longitude while at sea. Harrison's solution revo ...
employed HOL Light to formalize a proof employing complex analysis. By developing the necessary analytic machinery, including the Cauchy integral formula, Harrison was able to formalize "a direct, modern and elegant proof instead of the more involved 'elementary' Erdős–Selberg argument".


Prime number theorem for arithmetic progressions

Let denote the number of primes in the arithmetic progression that are less than . Dirichlet and Legendre conjectured, and de la Vallée Poussin proved, that if and are coprime, then :\pi_(x) \sim \frac \ , where is Euler's totient function. In other words, the primes are distributed evenly among the residue classes
modulo In computing, the modulo operation returns the remainder or signed remainder of a division, after one number is divided by another (called the '' modulus'' of the operation). Given two positive numbers and , modulo (often abbreviated as ) is t ...
with  . This is stronger than Dirichlet's theorem on arithmetic progressions (which only states that there is an infinity of primes in each class) and can be proved using similar methods used by Newman for his proof of the prime number theorem. The Siegel–Walfisz theorem gives a good estimate for the distribution of primes in residue classes. Bennett ''et al.'' proved the following estimate that has explicit constants and (Theorem 1.3): Let \ge 3 be an integer and let be an integer that is coprime to . Then there are positive constants and such that : \left , \pi_(x) - \frac \right , < \frac \quad \text \quad x \ge B\ , where : A = \frac \quad \text \quad 3 \leq d \leq 10^4 \quad \text \quad A = \frac \quad \text \quad d > 10^4 ~, and :B = 8 \cdot 10^9 \quad \text \quad 3 \leq d \leq 10^5 \quad \text \quad B = \exp(\ 0.03\ \sqrt\ (\log)^3 \ ) \quad \text \quad d > 10^5\ .


Prime number race

Although we have in particular :\pi_(x) \sim \pi_(x) \ , empirically the primes congruent to 3 are more numerous and are nearly always ahead in this "prime number race"; the first reversal occurs at . However Littlewood showed in 1914 that there are infinitely many sign changes for the function :\pi_(x) - \pi_(x) ~, so the lead in the race switches back and forth infinitely many times. The phenomenon that is ahead most of the time is called Chebyshev's bias. The prime number race generalizes to other moduli and is the subject of much research; Pál Turán asked whether it is always the case that and change places when and are coprime to . Granville and Martin give a thorough exposition and survey.


Non-asymptotic bounds on the prime-counting function

The prime number theorem is an ''asymptotic'' result. It gives an ineffective bound on as a direct consequence of the definition of the limit: for all , there is an such that for all , : (1-\varepsilon)\frac \; < \; \pi(x) \; < \; (1+\varepsilon)\frac \; . However, better bounds on are known, for instance
Pierre Dusart Pierre Dusart is a French mathematician at the Université de Limoges who specializes in number theory Number theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the in ...
's : \frac\left(1+\frac\right) \; < \; \pi(x) \; < \; \frac\left(1+\frac+\frac\right) \; . The first inequality holds for all and the second one for . A weaker but sometimes useful bound for is : \frac \; < \; \pi(x) \; < \; \frac \; . In Pierre Dusart's thesis there are stronger versions of this type of inequality that are valid for larger . Later in 2010, Dusart proved: :\begin \frac \; &< \; \pi(x) &&\text x \ge 5393 \; , \text\\ \pi(x) \; &< \; \frac && \text x \ge 60184 \; . \end The proof by de la Vallée Poussin implies the following: For every , there is an such that for all , : \frac \; < \; \pi(x) \; < \; \frac \; .


Approximations for the 'th prime number

As a consequence of the prime number theorem, one gets an asymptotic expression for the th prime number, denoted by : :p_n \sim n \log n. A better approximation is : \frac = \log n + \log \log n - 1 + \frac - \frac + o \left( \frac \right). Again considering the th prime number , this gives an estimate of ; the first 5 digits match and relative error is about 0.00005%. Rosser's theorem states that :p_n > n \log n. This can be improved by the following pair of bounds: : \log n + \log\log n - 1 < \frac < \log n + \log \log n \quad\text n \ge 6.


Table of , , and

The table compares exact values of to the two approximations and . The last column, , is the average prime gap below . : The value for was originally computed assuming the
Riemann hypothesis In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part . Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in ...
; it has since been verified unconditionally.


Analogue for irreducible polynomials over a finite field

There is an analogue of the prime number theorem that describes the "distribution" of irreducible polynomials over a finite field; the form it takes is strikingly similar to the case of the classical prime number theorem. To state it precisely, let be the finite field with elements, for some fixed , and let be the number of monic ''irreducible'' polynomials over whose
degree Degree may refer to: As a unit of measurement * Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement ** Degree of geographical latitude ** Degree of geographical longitude * Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathemati ...
is equal to . That is, we are looking at polynomials with coefficients chosen from , which cannot be written as products of polynomials of smaller degree. In this setting, these polynomials play the role of the prime numbers, since all other monic polynomials are built up of products of them. One can then prove that :N_n \sim \frac. If we make the substitution , then the right hand side is just :\frac, which makes the analogy clearer. Since there are precisely monic polynomials of degree (including the reducible ones), this can be rephrased as follows: if a monic polynomial of degree is selected randomly, then the probability of it being irreducible is about . One can even prove an analogue of the Riemann hypothesis, namely that :N_n = \fracn + O\left(\frac\right). The proofs of these statements are far simpler than in the classical case. It involves a short, combinatorial argument, summarised as follows: every element of the degree extension of is a root of some irreducible polynomial whose degree divides ; by counting these roots in two different ways one establishes that :q^n = \sum_ d N_d, where the sum is over all
divisor In mathematics, a divisor of an integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer m that may be multiplied by some integer to produce n. In this case, one also says that n is a multiple of m. An integer n is divisible or evenly divisible by ...
s of . Möbius inversion then yields :N_n = \frac \sum_ \mu\left(\frac\right) q^d, where is the Möbius function. (This formula was known to Gauss.) The main term occurs for , and it is not difficult to bound the remaining terms. The "Riemann hypothesis" statement depends on the fact that the largest proper divisor of can be no larger than .


See also

*
Abstract analytic number theory Abstract analytic number theory is a branch of mathematics which takes the ideas and techniques of classical analytic number theory and applies them to a variety of different mathematical fields. The classical prime number theorem serves as a pro ...
for information about generalizations of the theorem. * Landau prime ideal theorem for a generalization to prime ideals in algebraic number fields. *
Riemann hypothesis In mathematics, the Riemann hypothesis is the conjecture that the Riemann zeta function has its zeros only at the negative even integers and complex numbers with real part . Many consider it to be the most important unsolved problem in ...


Citations


References

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External links

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Table of Primes by Anton Felkel

Short video
visualizing the Prime Number Theorem.

an

at MathWorld.
How Many Primes Are There?
an

by Chris Caldwell, University of Tennessee at Martin.
Tables of prime-counting functions
by Tomás Oliveira e Silva * Eberl, Manuel and Paulson, L. C.br>The Prime Number Theorem (Formal proof development in Isabelle/HOL, Archive of Formal Proofs)The Prime Number Theorem: the "elementary" proof
− An exposition of the elementary proof of the Prime Number Theorem of Atle Selberg and Paul Erdős a
www.dimostriamogoldbach.it/en/
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prime Number Theorem Logarithms Theorems about prime numbers Theorems in analytic number theory