OFFSET
2,2
COMMENTS
Firoozbakht's conjecture: there exists an a(n) for every n greater than 1 and it is less than n^2.
For n with one digit, the searched-for prime must have at least 2n - 1 digits in base 10.
Firoozbakht's conjecture holds true up to at least 100. With adequately coded commands, verification should not take longer than a minute. - Alonso del Arte, Dec 09 2009
LINKS
C. Rivera, Puzzle 8 (www.primepuzzles.net).
EXAMPLE
a(4) = 14 because the concatenation of the digits from 4 to 1 (that is, 4321) with 14 stuck between each of them is 4143142141, and that is a prime number. Similar concatenations with numbers less than 14 used in 14's place all give composite numbers.
MATHEMATICA
(*In the absence of a base argument, the function leastGenPrimeByListingFNI assumes the base is 10. Minimum and maximum allowed base values are 2 and 36.*) leastGenPrimeByListingFNI[n_, b_: 10] := Module[{m = 0, p, flag = False}, While[Not[flag], m++; p = FromDigits[Flatten[{Table[{IntegerDigits[i, b], IntegerDigits[m, b]}, {i, n, 2, -1}], {1}}], b]; flag = PrimeQ[p]]; Return[m]]; Table[leastGenPrimeByListingFNI[n], {n, 2, 10}]
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn,base
AUTHOR
Farideh Firoozbakht, Jun 14 2003
EXTENSIONS
Terms verified by Alonso del Arte, Dec 09 2009
STATUS
approved