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Feit-Thompson Conjecture


The Feit-Thompson conjecture asserts that there are no primes p and q for which (p^q-1)/(p-1) and (q^p-1)/(q-1) have a common factor.

Parker noticed that if this were true, it would greatly simplify the lengthy proof of the Feit-Thompson theorem that every group of odd order is solvable. (Guy 1994, p. 81). However, the counterexample (p=17, q=3313) with a common factor 112643 was subsequently found by Stephens (1971), demonstrating that the conjecture is, in fact, false.

No other such pairs exist with both values less than 400000.


See also

Burnside's Conjecture, Feit-Thompson Theorem

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References

Apostol, T. M. "The Resultant of the Cyclotomic Polynomials F_m(ax) and F_n(bx)." Math. Comput. 29, 1-6, 1975.Feit, W. and Thompson, J. G. "A Solvability Criterion for Finite Groups and Some Consequences." Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. USA 48, 968-970, 1962.Feit, W. and Thompson, J. G. "Solvability of Groups of Odd Order." Pacific J. Math. 13, 775-1029, 1963.Guy, R. K. Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 2nd ed. New York: Springer-Verlag, p. 81, 1994.Stephens, N. M. "On the Feit-Thompson Conjecture." Math. Comput. 25, 625, 1971.Wells, D. G. The Penguin Dictionary of Curious and Interesting Numbers. London: Penguin, p. 17, 1986.

Cite this as:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Feit-Thompson Conjecture." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Feit-ThompsonConjecture.html

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