Prime pages
Encyclopedia
The Prime Pages is a website about prime number
s maintained by Chris Caldwell at the University of Tennessee at Martin
.
The site maintains the list of the "5,000 largest known primes", selected smaller primes of special forms, and many "top twenty" lists for primes of various forms. , the 5,000th prime has around 200,700 digits.
The Prime Pages has a wealth of articles on primes and primality test
ing. It includes "The Prime Glossary" with articles on hundreds of glosses related to primes, and "Prime Curios!" with thousands of curios about specific numbers.
The database started as a list of titanic prime
s by Samuel Yates
. For years the whole top-5,000 has consisted of gigantic prime
s. Primes of special forms are kept on the current lists if they are titanic and in the top-20 or top-5 for their form.
Prime number
A prime number is a natural number greater than 1 that has no positive divisors other than 1 and itself. A natural number greater than 1 that is not a prime number is called a composite number. For example 5 is prime, as only 1 and 5 divide it, whereas 6 is composite, since it has the divisors 2...
s maintained by Chris Caldwell at the University of Tennessee at Martin
University of Tennessee at Martin
The University of Tennessee at Martin is a campus in the University of Tennessee system. Other campuses include the flagship campus in Knoxville, the Chattanooga campus, the Center for the Health Sciences in Memphis, and the Space Institute in Tullahoma...
.
The site maintains the list of the "5,000 largest known primes", selected smaller primes of special forms, and many "top twenty" lists for primes of various forms. , the 5,000th prime has around 200,700 digits.
The Prime Pages has a wealth of articles on primes and primality test
Primality test
A primality test is an algorithm for determining whether an input number is prime. Amongst other fields of mathematics, it is used for cryptography. Unlike integer factorization, primality tests do not generally give prime factors, only stating whether the input number is prime or not...
ing. It includes "The Prime Glossary" with articles on hundreds of glosses related to primes, and "Prime Curios!" with thousands of curios about specific numbers.
The database started as a list of titanic prime
Titanic prime
Titanic prime is a term coined by Samuel Yates in the 1980s, denoting a prime number of at least 1000 decimal digits. Few such primes were known then, but the required size is trivial for modern computers.The first 30 titanic primes are of the form:...
s by Samuel Yates
Samuel Yates
Samuel Yates was a mathematician who first described unique primes in the 1980s. In 1984 he began the list of "Largest Known Primes" and coined the name titanic prime for any prime with 1,000 or more decimal digits...
. For years the whole top-5,000 has consisted of gigantic prime
Gigantic prime
A gigantic prime is a prime number with at least 10,000 decimal digits.The term appeared in Journal of Recreational Mathematics in the article "Collecting gigantic and titanic primes" by Samuel Yates...
s. Primes of special forms are kept on the current lists if they are titanic and in the top-20 or top-5 for their form.