Dubner's primes: searching for twin primes and other denizens of the number world. (Harvey Dubner)

From: Science News | Date: November 20, 1993| Author: | Copyright information

Harvey Dubner has a way with numbers--prime numbers, to be exact. Using four souped-up personal computers at his own home and two more at his son's house, he searches for titanic primes, each one running to 1,000 digits or more.

Defined as whole numbers exactly divisible only by themselves and one, prime numbers have lone fascinated both profesisonal and amateur mathematicians. They raise intriguing questions: Is there a formula or a simple rule that generates only primes? Is there a straightforward, efficient way of checking whether a given number is prime? Do prime ...

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