Re:What is the largest bi-truncatable prime?
by Someone on Friday May 03, 2019 @12:55PM
(#19820072)
So, is there a truly largest one?
Let’s assume we have B(n) bitruncatable primes of length (n)
For B(n+2), we have at most 45 times that number (digit added at the front can’t be a zero; digit added at the back must be odd)
The fraction of them that’s prime is about 2/log(10^(n+1)) (factor 2 added because we already dropped all even numbers; n+1 in the denominator as being halfway between n and n+2 digits; neither factors affect the conclusion)
Let’s assume we have B(n) bitruncatable primes of length (n)
For B(n+2), we have at most 45 times that number (digit added at the front can’t be a zero; digit added at the back must be odd)
The fraction of them that’s prime is about 2/log(10^(n+1)) (factor 2 added because we already dropped all even numbers; n+1 in the denominator as being halfway between n and n+2 digits; neither factors affect the conclusion)
That gives us the recurrence relation
That number gets smaller and smaller once n > 90/log(10) (about 39)So, I think it’s very likely there is a largest one.
This line of thought applies to all integer bases > 2 (there isn’t a largest one in base 2 because there isn’t any in base 2)