some random dude

Sorry, got my username and thread title mixed up. Sometimes I fail to pay attention to detail.

Your post is not off topic if prime numbers is the topic of your thread. If I were to now start ranting about some gang of snowmobile riding lesbian midgets, THAT would be off topic.

ah yes, since my name has been registered for many years...btw, why are you using my name?

for the life of me I couldn't understand why somebody wanted me to answer something about primers...i do medicine, not math. :)

cheers, dude-

Sorry somerandomdude didn't know I stole your handle.

Bump for the LR pseudo-intellectuals, haha, J/K. Flagpole? Ventolin? malmo? Someone who actually works with number theory?

Seriously, interested in input, even if just funny.

c'mon flagpole, malmo and ventolin, I called you pseudo-intellectuals and lumped you into the same group. Surely this has to irritate at least one of you (and flatter one or more)?

haha, shameless bump, still looking for useful input, I know it's out there...

Ah, math. Nothing in equipment costs, and yet an infinite source of fascinating fun, puzzlement, and entertainment.

You might try checking out a book on number theory first to see whether your patterns have already been described and covered in theorems and corollaries. For example, arithmetic sequences of the form ax + b, where a, b and x are integers, and a and b are relatively prime.

Have you seen Slumdog Millionaire? That, my friend, should provide you with the answers you seek.

some random dude wrote:

c'mon flagpole, malmo and ventolin, I called you pseudo-intellectuals and lumped you into the same group. Surely this has to irritate at least one of you (and flatter one or more)?

haha, shameless bump, still looking for useful input, I know it's out there...

1) I'm not a pseudo intellectual. I am, of course, a full-blown intellectual.

2) I'm neither flattered nor irritated by being called a pseudo intellectual.

3) I am not a math person (other than math as it relates to the stock market and personal finance and basic algebra), so I do not have an answer for the initial question you posed. Contrary to popular belief, I do NOT think I know everything and don't answer every question asked here.

google.com might help.

Unless you can provide a proof that there is an infinite number of perfect numbers or you found an odd perfect number or something really unusual, I highly doubt you have come up with something new.

pretty good section in I Am a Strange Loop by Hofstadter. Very recommended if you are interested in numbers and patterns and haven't read it yet.

The Grumpy Uncle B wrote:What are you too lazy to read all the links in that site? There were some decent links. Come on dork, try doing your own work.

fast forward wrote: I highly doubt you have come up with something new.

slakcerdom wrote: google.com might help.

Great tip!

I already had about 30 tabs open from my googling. Sometimes asking a question of other people leads to interesting leads not initially produced by the holy google.

I don't know if you found this, but if you write out integers in a counterclockwise spiral, there will be many more prime numbers along the diagonals. It's called the Ulam Spiral.

http://www.hermetic.ch/pns/pns.htm

Interestingly, the sci-fi novelist Arthur C. Clarke unwittingly (sort of) described the Ulam Spiral in a novel a few years before Ulam discovered it.

Thanks, yes I had seen that. In fact, reading about that got me working on this. I took a different tack, almost completely by accident, and found some much more interesting patterns develop. I assume (as someone else already pointed out) the "discovery" is likely not original, but nevertheless I'd like to follow up. Hence the thread here on LR, home of number theorists by the boatload... :-)

some random dude wrote:

Thanks, yes I had seen that. In fact, reading about that got me working on this. I took a different tack, almost completely by accident, and found some much more interesting patterns develop. I assume (as someone else already pointed out) the "discovery" is likely not original, but nevertheless I'd like to follow up. Hence the thread here on LR, home of number theorists by the boatload... :-)

I'm not a mathematician so I'm not sure about this, but I wouldn't worry about "discovering" something that someone else has already discovered. Sometimes it is cool, and probably good for your mind, to just think about things for the hell of it! I remember when I was in the fourth grade and "discovered" negative numbers; I spent the next two years or so of my life thinking I had revolutionized the field of mathematics. Good luck to another amateur math enthusiast!

Wise Guy wrote:

I don't know if you found this, but if you write out integers in a counterclockwise spiral, there will be many more prime numbers along the diagonals. It's called the Ulam Spiral.

http://www.hermetic.ch/pns/pns.htm

Interestingly, the sci-fi novelist Arthur C. Clarke unwittingly (sort of) described the Ulam Spiral in a novel a few years before Ulam discovered it.

What book was this described in??? I've read a lot of Arthur C. Clarke but don't remember this, but it's been a few years since I've read them...