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A117069 Leading terms in rows obtained by repeatedly computing consecutive absolute differences, starting with the squares of prime numbers. 0
5, 11, 3, 37, 21, 13, 5, 3, 13, 5, 3, 5, 11, 3, 5, 11, 5, 11, 5, 3, 5, 107, 91, 59, 43, 27, 11, 5, 11, 669, 11, 621, 13, 499, 13, 451, 13, 355, 13, 331, 11, 213, 13, 163, 11, 69, 13, 19, 13, 5, 11, 3, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5, 11, 5, 195, 19, 157, 19, 61, 19, 61, 19, 3, 5, 3, 13, 5, 3, 5, 11 (list; graph; refs; listen; history; internal format)
OFFSET

1,1

COMMENTS

In the first million rows, only 70767 leading terms are composite.

It is conjectured that for any positive integer n, the number of prime leading elements in the first n rows is greater than the number of composite leading elements (Pe's conjecture).

Preliminary investigations have led me to make the following generalization of the Gilbreath's and Pe's conjectures: For a fixed positive integer n, let T(n) be the table of consecutive absolute differences of the n-th powers of primes. Then the number of k-almost prime leading elements, 0 < k < n, is greater than the number of leading elements that are not of this form. Recall that a number is called k-almost prime if the sum of the exponents in its prime factorization equals k. Thus a 0-almost prime equals 1, a 1-almost prime is a prime number and a 2-almost prime is a semiprime. If n = 1, we have a weak form of Gilbreath's conjecture and if n = 2, we have Pe's conjecture.

There is a more general conjecture due to Croft and others, mentioned in Guy's book, that the Gilbreath property will hold for any sequence of odd numbers (but with an initial term 2) that does not increase too fast. - N. J. A. Sloane (njas(AT)research.att.com), Apr 18 2006

REFERENCES

R. K. Guy, Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, Section A10.

Pe, J. "On the Absolute Difference Table of Squares of Primes" (to appear in the Journal of Recreational Mathematics)

LINKS

Prime Puzzles, Pe's conjecture

Author?, On the Absolute Difference Table of Squares of Primes

EXAMPLE

Start with the sequence of squares of primes:

4, 9, 25, 49, 121, ....

Take the absolute values of differences between consecutive terms:

5, 16, 24, 72, ....

Repeat this operation successively:

11, 8, 48, ....

3, 40, ....

....

a(n) consists of the leading terms of the rows of differences above.

CROSSREFS

Sequence in context: A098147 A100298 A066461 * A145355 A110353 A097720

Adjacent sequences:  A117066 A117067 A117068 * A117070 A117071 A117072

KEYWORD

nonn

AUTHOR

Joseph L. Pe (joseph_l_pe(AT)hotmail.com), Apr 17 2006

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Last modified February 15 06:58 EST 2012. Contains 205694 sequences.