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From: mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Spacing of Prime Numbers
Message-ID: <772@mcgill-vision.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-May-87 01:48:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcgill-v.772
Posted: Wed May 13 01:48:22 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 24-May-87 03:31:55 EDT
References: <1392@phred.UUCP>
Organization: McGill University, Montreal
Lines: 20
Keywords: Primes

In article <1392@phred.UUCP>, johns@phred.UUCP (John Stice) writes:
> The May issue of DISCOVER magazine [asks]

> Prove there is a sequence of at least one million consecutive
> integers, none of whom are prime.

> [proof, involving 1000003 factorial]

> I had always guessed primes were more closely spaced than that.  (But
> then, number theory is not my forte.)

Note that the number in question (1000003!) has over five and a half
*million* digits (I obtained this by summing logarithms from 1 to
1000003; the result printed as 5.56573e+06).  I somehow don't think
that a run of a million composite numbers is too exceptional when
you're that far out.

					der Mouse

				(mouse@mcgill-vision.uucp)