An explicit formula for the prime numbers.
Extremely clever. It essentially expresses a program as a function evaluation, using only very simple functions as building blocks.
Conversation
Replying to
At first I thought the cosine might be related to the prime counting function.
It’s actually used to get an indicator variable for when its argument is an integer. The video explains.
Quote Tweet
In 1964, C.P. Willans found this exact(!) formula for the primes.
Watch @ericrowland nicely explain how it works and why it's kinda useless...
youtu.be/j5s0h42GfvM
2
3
43
Replying to
If we were a tad smarter or built a little different, we would see primes in the same way we see 1,2,3... Just a bit more interesting pattern than simple counting
Show more replies