UConn Math Club
MSB 315
Mar. 1, 5:30-6:20 PM
(free refreshments)

Tom Weston
(UMass)
Primes in arithmetic progressions


Abstract

It is an old result of Euclid that there are infinitely many primes. One way to refine this is to ask how the primes are distributed in arithmetic progressions. For example, there are three arithmetic progressions with common difference 3:

1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, …
2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, …
3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, …
Among the first 1,000,000 primes excluding 3, the first progression contains 499829 primes and the second progression contains 500171 primes. The primes are trying to be “equally distributed”.

The proof of results like this is quite different from Euclid's relatively simple proof; it involves analytic techniques. In this talk we will illustrate the ideas for arithmetic progressions having common difference 3 (as above) and 5. No background beyond second semester calculus will be required.


http://www.math.uconn.edu/mathclub (USG funded)