PRIMES AND THEIR DISTRIBUTION 45
Example 3.1. The foregoing technique provides a practical means for determining the
canonical form of an integer, say a 2093. Because 45 < J2093 < 46, it is enough
=
to examine the primes 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43. By trial, the
first of these to divide 2093 is 7, and 2093 7 299. As regards the integer 299, the
= ·
seven primes that are less than 18 (note that 17 < .J299 < 18) are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17.
The first prime divisor of 299 is 13 and, carrying out the required division, we obtain
299 13 23. But 23 is itself a prime, whence 2093 has exactly three prime factors,
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7, 13, and 23:
2093 = 7 . 13 . 23
Another Greek mathematician whose work in number theory remains significant
is Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276-194 B.c.). Although posterity remembers him mainly
as the director of the world-famous library at Alexandria, Eratosthenes was gifted in
all branches of learning, if not of first rank in any; in his own day, he was nicknamed
"Beta" because, it was said, he stood at least second in every field. Perhaps the
most impressive feat of Eratosthenes was the accurate measurement of the earth's
circumference by a simple application of Euclidean geometry.
We have seen that if an integer a > 1 is not divisible by any prime p < fa,
then a is of necessity a prime. Eratosthenes used this fact as the basis of a clever
technique, called the Sieve of Eratosthenes, for finding all primes below a given
integer n. The scheme calls for writing down the integers from 2 to n in their
natural order and then systematically eliminating all the composite numbers by
striking out all multiples 2p, 3p, 4p, 5p, ... of the primes p :S ,Jn. The in
tegers that are left on the list-those that do not fall through the "sieve"-are
pnmes.
To see an example of how this works, suppose that we wish to find all primes
not exceeding 100. Consider the sequence of consecutive integers 2, 3, 4, ..., 100.
Recognizing that 2 is a prime, we begin by crossing out all even integers from our
listing, except 2 itself. The first of the remaining integers is 3, which must be a
prime. We keep 3, but strike out all higher multiples of 3, so that 9, 15, 21, ... are
now removed (the even multiples of 3 having been removed in the previous step).
The smallest integer after 3 that has not yet been deleted is 5. It is not divisible by
either 2 or 3-otherwise it would have been crossed out-hence, it is also a prime.
All proper multiples of 5 being composite numbers, we next remove 10, 15, 20, ...
(some of these are, of course, already missing), while retaining 5 itself. The first
surviving integer 7 is a prime, for it is not divisible by 2, 3, or 5, the only primes
that precede it. After eliminating the proper multiples of 7, the largest prime less
than ,JlOO = 10, all composite integers in the sequence 2, 3, 4, ..., 100 have fallen
through the sieve. The positive integers that remain, to wit, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19,
23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97, are all of the primes
less than 100.
The following table represents the result of the completed sieve. The multiples
of 2 are crossed out by\; the multiples of 3 are crossed out by/; the multiples of 5
are crossed out by -; the multiples of 7 are crossed out by """.
