Friday, 22 August 2014

Proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers p such that p2 is not prime.



Just need verification of this proof by contradiction:




Let pk be the largest prime number such that pk2 is not a prime number. Let pl be some prime number such that pl>3pk. We know that pl exists because there are infinitely many prime numbers as proven elsewhere.



pl2 is a prime number. pl4 is a prime number as well. By induction, all numbers pk<x<pl|xmod2=1 are prime numbers. But $p_k<3p_k

Also would love to see more concise proofs if at all possible.



Edit:



Great that I got so many people trying to provide their own proof but the question was primarily asked so that I could have my proof verified. Only skyking addressed my question, though I do not yet understand his criticism.


Answer




First of all some criticism, the proof seem to be somewhat overly complicated. But I see no fault in it.



It's not that clear that pl4 is a prime number, not using the fact that pk being the largest prime such that pk2 is not a prime at least.



The statement however follows quite easily from two observations:




  1. There are infinite number of primes

  2. There are infinite number of odd composite numbers (non-primes)




For each odd composite number k there exists a smallest prime p(k)>k. Now since it's the smallest such prime you have that p(k)2 is not a prime (p(k)2k, either it's k and composite or between k and p(k) and therefore composite).



The first observation is a direct consequence of that 3(2n+1) is composite. The second is because otherwise (if there were finitely many primes) the product of all primes plus 1 would be another prime.


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