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Sexy Primes
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Sexy primes are pairs of primes of the form (p, p+6), so-named since "sex" is the Latin word for "six.". The first few sexy prime pairs are (5, 11), (7, 13), (11, 17), (13, 19), (17, 23), (23, 29), (31, 37), (37, 43), (41, 47), (47, 53), ... (Sloane's A023201 and A046117). As of November 2005, the largest known sexy prime pair starts with

 p={48011837012[(53238·7879#)^2-1]+2310}·(53238·7879#)/(385)+1,
(1)

where 7879# is a primorial. These primes have 10154 digits and were found by M. Fleuren, T. Alm, and J. K. Andersen (Andersen 2005).

Sexy constellations also exist. The first few sexy triplets (i.e., numbers such that each of (p,p+6,p+12) is prime but p+18 is not prime) are (7, 13, 19), (17, 23, 29), (31, 37, 43), (47, 53, 59), ... (Sloane's A046118, A046119, and A046120). As of October 2005, the largest known sexy triplet starts with

 p=(61310346529·205881·4001#·(205881·4001#+1)+210)·(205881·4001#-1)/(35)+1.
(2)

These primes have 5132 digit digits and were found by Davis (2005).

The first few sexy quadruplets are (11, 17, 23, 29), (41, 47, 53, 59), (61, 67, 73, 79), (251, 257, 263, 269), ... (Sloane's A023271, A046122, A046123, and A046124). Sexy quadruplets can only begin with a prime ending in a "1." As of November 2005, the largest known sexy quadruplet starts with

 p=411784973·2347#+3301.
(3)

These primes have 1002 digits and were found by J. K. Andersen (2005).

There is only a single sexy quintuplet, (5, 11, 17, 23, 29), since every fifth number of the form 6n+/-1 is divisible by 5, and therefore cannot be prime.

SEE ALSO: Cousin Primes, Prime Constellation, Prime Quadruplet, Twin Primes

REFERENCES:

Andersen, J. K. "Gigantic Sexy and Cousin Primes." Post to primeform user forum. Nov. 3, 2005. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/primeform/message/6637.

Davis, K. "5132 Digit BLS Provable CPAP3 (diff=6)." Post to primeform user forum. Oct. 19, 2005. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/primeform/message/6542.

Sloane, N. J. A. Sequences A023201, A023271, A046117, A046118, A046119, A046120, A046122, A046123, and A046124 in "The On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences."

Trotter, T. "Sexy Primes." http://www.trottermath.net/numthry/sexyprim.html.




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Weisstein, Eric W. "Sexy Primes." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SexyPrimes.html

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