TOPICS
Search

Sexy Primes


Sexy primes are pairs of primes of the form (p, p+6), so-named since "sex" is the Latin word for "six.". The first few sexy prime pairs are (5, 11), (7, 13), (11, 17), (13, 19), (17, 23), (23, 29), (31, 37), (37, 43), (41, 47), (47, 53), ... (OEIS A023201 and A046117). As of November 2005, the largest known sexy prime pair starts with

 p={48011837012[(53238·7879#)^2-1]+2310}·(53238·7879#)/(385)+1,
(1)

where 7879# is a primorial. These primes have 10154 digits and were found by M. Fleuren, T. Alm, and J. K. Andersen (Andersen 2005).

Sexy constellations also exist. The first few sexy triplets (i.e., numbers such that each of (p,p+6,p+12) is prime but p+18 is not prime) are (7, 13, 19), (17, 23, 29), (31, 37, 43), (47, 53, 59), ... (OEIS A046118, A046119, and A046120). As of October 2005, the largest known sexy triplet starts with

 p=(61310346529·205881·4001#·(205881·4001#+1)+210)·(205881·4001#-1)/(35)+1.
(2)

These primes have 5132 digit digits and were found by Davis (2005).

The first few sexy quadruplets are (11, 17, 23, 29), (41, 47, 53, 59), (61, 67, 73, 79), (251, 257, 263, 269), ... (OEIS A023271, A046122, A046123, and A046124). Sexy quadruplets can only begin with a prime ending in a "1." As of November 2005, the largest known sexy quadruplet starts with

 p=411784973·2347#+3301.
(3)

These primes have 1002 digits and were found by J. K. Andersen (2005).

There is only a single sexy quintuplet, (5, 11, 17, 23, 29), since every fifth number of the form 6n+/-1 is divisible by 5, and therefore cannot be prime.


See also

Cousin Primes, Prime Constellation, Prime Quadruplet, Twin Primes

Explore with Wolfram|Alpha

References

Andersen, J. K. "Gigantic Sexy and Cousin Primes." Post to primeform user forum. Nov. 3, 2005. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/primeform/message/6637.Davis, K. "5132 Digit BLS Provable CPAP3 (diff=6)." Post to primeform user forum. Oct. 19, 2005. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/primeform/message/6542.Sloane, N. J. A. Sequences A023201, A023271, A046117, A046118, A046119, A046120, A046122, A046123, and A046124 in "The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences."Trotter, T. "Sexy Primes." http://www.trottermath.net/numthry/sexyprim.html.

Referenced on Wolfram|Alpha

Sexy Primes

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Sexy Primes." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/SexyPrimes.html

Subject classifications