Prime numberA prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways of writing it as a product, 1 × 5 or 5 × 1, involve 5 itself. However, 4 is composite because it is a product (2 × 2) in which both numbers are smaller than 4.
DivisorIn mathematics, a divisor of an integer , also called a factor of , is an integer that may be multiplied by some integer to produce . In this case, one also says that is a multiple of An integer is divisible or evenly divisible by another integer if is a divisor of ; this implies dividing by leaves no remainder. An integer n is divisible by a nonzero integer m if there exists an integer k such that . This is written as Other ways of saying the same thing are that m divides n, m is a divisor of n, m is a factor of n, and n is a multiple of m.
Zero divisorIn abstract algebra, an element a of a ring R is called a left zero divisor if there exists a nonzero x in R such that ax = 0, or equivalently if the map from R to R that sends x to ax is not injective. Similarly, an element a of a ring is called a right zero divisor if there exists a nonzero y in R such that ya = 0. This is a partial case of divisibility in rings. An element that is a left or a right zero divisor is simply called a zero divisor.
Integer factorizationIn number theory, integer factorization is the decomposition, when possible, of a positive integer into a product of smaller integers. If the factors are further restricted to be prime numbers, the process is called prime factorization, and includes the test whether the given integer is prime (in this case, one has a "product" of a single factor). When the numbers are sufficiently large, no efficient non-quantum integer factorization algorithm is known. However, it has not been proven that such an algorithm does not exist.
Prime omega functionIn number theory, the prime omega functions and count the number of prime factors of a natural number Thereby (little omega) counts each distinct prime factor, whereas the related function (big omega) counts the total number of prime factors of honoring their multiplicity (see arithmetic function). That is, if we have a prime factorization of of the form for distinct primes (), then the respective prime omega functions are given by and . These prime factor counting functions have many important number theoretic relations.
Unitary divisorIn mathematics, a natural number a is a unitary divisor (or Hall divisor) of a number b if a is a divisor of b and if a and are coprime, having no common factor other than 1. Thus, 5 is a unitary divisor of 60, because 5 and have only 1 as a common factor, while 6 is a divisor but not a unitary divisor of 60, as 6 and have a common factor other than 1, namely 2. 1 is a unitary divisor of every natural number. Equivalently, a divisor a of b is a unitary divisor if and only if every prime factor of a has the same multiplicity in a as it has in b.
Legendre symbolIn number theory, the Legendre symbol is a multiplicative function with values 1, −1, 0 that is a quadratic character modulo of an odd prime number p: its value at a (nonzero) quadratic residue mod p is 1 and at a non-quadratic residue (non-residue) is −1. Its value at zero is 0. The Legendre symbol was introduced by Adrien-Marie Legendre in 1798 in the course of his attempts at proving the law of quadratic reciprocity. Generalizations of the symbol include the Jacobi symbol and Dirichlet characters of higher order.
Number theoryNumber theory (or arithmetic or higher arithmetic in older usage) is a branch of pure mathematics devoted primarily to the study of the integers and arithmetic functions. German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) said, "Mathematics is the queen of the sciences—and number theory is the queen of mathematics." Number theorists study prime numbers as well as the properties of mathematical objects constructed from integers (for example, rational numbers), or defined as generalizations of the integers (for example, algebraic integers).
Roger Heath-BrownDavid Rodney "Roger" Heath-Brown (born 12 October 1952) is a British mathematician working in the field of analytic number theory. He was an undergraduate and graduate student of Trinity College, Cambridge; his research supervisor was Alan Baker. In 1979 he moved to the University of Oxford, where from 1999 he held a professorship in pure mathematics. He retired in 2016. Heath-Brown is known for many striking results. He proved that there are infinitely many prime numbers of the form x3 + 2y3. In collaboration with S.
Greatest common divisorIn mathematics, the greatest common divisor (GCD) of two or more integers, which are not all zero, is the largest positive integer that divides each of the integers. For two integers x, y, the greatest common divisor of x and y is denoted . For example, the GCD of 8 and 12 is 4, that is, . In the name "greatest common divisor", the adjective "greatest" may be replaced by "highest", and the word "divisor" may be replaced by "factor", so that other names include highest common factor (hcf), etc.
Mersenne primeIn mathematics, a Mersenne prime is a prime number that is one less than a power of two. That is, it is a prime number of the form Mn = 2n − 1 for some integer n. They are named after Marin Mersenne, a French Minim friar, who studied them in the early 17th century. If n is a composite number then so is 2n − 1. Therefore, an equivalent definition of the Mersenne primes is that they are the prime numbers of the form Mp = 2p − 1 for some prime p. The exponents n which give Mersenne primes are 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, .
Divisor functionIn mathematics, and specifically in number theory, a divisor function is an arithmetic function related to the divisors of an integer. When referred to as the divisor function, it counts the number of divisors of an integer (including 1 and the number itself). It appears in a number of remarkable identities, including relationships on the Riemann zeta function and the Eisenstein series of modular forms. Divisor functions were studied by Ramanujan, who gave a number of important congruences and identities; these are treated separately in the article Ramanujan's sum.
Gauss's lemma (number theory)Gauss's lemma in number theory gives a condition for an integer to be a quadratic residue. Although it is not useful computationally, it has theoretical significance, being involved in some proofs of quadratic reciprocity. It made its first appearance in Carl Friedrich Gauss's third proof (1808) of quadratic reciprocity and he proved it again in his fifth proof (1818). For any odd prime p let a be an integer that is coprime to p. Consider the integers and their least positive residues modulo p.
Elliptic curveIn mathematics, an elliptic curve is a smooth, projective, algebraic curve of genus one, on which there is a specified point O. An elliptic curve is defined over a field K and describes points in K^2, the Cartesian product of K with itself. If the field's characteristic is different from 2 and 3, then the curve can be described as a plane algebraic curve which consists of solutions (x, y) for: for some coefficients a and b in K. The curve is required to be non-singular, which means that the curve has no cusps or self-intersections.
NumberA number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can be represented by symbols, called numerals; for example, "5" is a numeral that represents the number five. As only a relatively small number of symbols can be memorized, basic numerals are commonly organized in a numeral system, which is an organized way to represent any number.
Safe and Sophie Germain primesIn number theory, a prime number p is a Sophie Germain prime if 2p + 1 is also prime. The number 2p + 1 associated with a Sophie Germain prime is called a safe prime. For example, 11 is a Sophie Germain prime and 2 × 11 + 1 = 23 is its associated safe prime. Sophie Germain primes are named after French mathematician Sophie Germain, who used them in her investigations of Fermat's Last Theorem. One attempt by Germain to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem was to let p be a prime number of the form 8k + 7 and to let n = p – 1.
Divisor (algebraic geometry)In algebraic geometry, divisors are a generalization of codimension-1 subvarieties of algebraic varieties. Two different generalizations are in common use, Cartier divisors and Weil divisors (named for Pierre Cartier and André Weil by David Mumford). Both are derived from the notion of divisibility in the integers and algebraic number fields. Globally, every codimension-1 subvariety of projective space is defined by the vanishing of one homogeneous polynomial; by contrast, a codimension-r subvariety need not be definable by only r equations when r is greater than 1.
Splitting of prime ideals in Galois extensionsIn mathematics, the interplay between the Galois group G of a Galois extension L of a number field K, and the way the prime ideals P of the ring of integers OK factorise as products of prime ideals of OL, provides one of the richest parts of algebraic number theory. The splitting of prime ideals in Galois extensions is sometimes attributed to David Hilbert by calling it Hilbert theory. There is a geometric analogue, for ramified coverings of Riemann surfaces, which is simpler in that only one kind of subgroup of G need be considered, rather than two.
Pépin's testIn mathematics, Pépin's test is a primality test, which can be used to determine whether a Fermat number is prime. It is a variant of Proth's test. The test is named for a French mathematician, Théophile Pépin. Let be the nth Fermat number. Pépin's test states that for n > 0, is prime if and only if The expression can be evaluated modulo by repeated squaring. This makes the test a fast polynomial-time algorithm. However, Fermat numbers grow so rapidly that only a handful of Fermat numbers can be tested in a reasonable amount of time and space.
States' rightsIn American political discourse, states' rights are political powers held for the state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, reflecting especially the enumerated powers of Congress and the Tenth Amendment. The enumerated powers that are listed in the Constitution include exclusive federal powers, as well as concurrent powers that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are contrasted with the reserved powers—also called states' rights—that only the states possess.
