OFFSET
2,3
COMMENTS
The locution "the two odd numbers which bracket n^m" indicates the pair (n^m-1,n^m+1) for even n and (n^m-2,n^m+2) for odd n.
The initial records in this sequence are a(2)=1, a(4)=2, a(9)=3, a(102795)=4. No higher value was found up to 5500000. It is not clear whether a(n) is bounded.
LINKS
Stanislav Sykora, Table of n, a(n) for n = 2..10000
EXAMPLE
a(2)=1 because one of the two odd numbers (1,3) which bracket 2^1 is not a prime. a(5)=2 because 5^1 is bracketed by the odd numbers (3,7) which are both prime, while 5^2 is bracketed by the odd numbers (23,27), one of which is not a prime.
The number c=102795 is the smallest one whose powers c^1, c^2, c^3 are all odd-bracketed by primes, while c^4 is not.
PROG
(PARI) avector(nmax)={my(n, k, d=2, v=vector(nmax)); for(n=2, #v+1, d=3-d; k=1; while(1, if((!isprime(n^k-d))||(!isprime(n^k+d)), v[n-1]=k; break, k++)); ); return(v); }
a=avector(10000) \\ For nmax=6000000 runs out of 1GB memory
CROSSREFS
KEYWORD
nonn
AUTHOR
Stanislav Sykora, Jul 24 2014
STATUS
approved