Cunningham chain
Okay kiddo, so do you know what a chain is? It's like when you have a bunch of things linked together in a row, like the beads on your necklace.
Now imagine these links are numbers. A Cunningham chain is a special kind of chain where each number is the product of two other numbers, minus one.
For example, let's start with the number 7. To find the next number in the chain, we multiply 7 by 2 and add 1 to get 15. Then we take 15 and multiply it by 2 and add 1 to get 31.
We keep doing this until we can't find a new number that fits the pattern.
Why is this important? Well, these chains help mathematicians study something called prime numbers, which are like special numbers that only have two factors (like 2 and 3 for the number 6).
By looking at the numbers in a Cunningham chain, mathematicians can sometimes find interesting patterns in prime numbers and better understand how they work. Pretty cool, huh?
Now imagine these links are numbers. A Cunningham chain is a special kind of chain where each number is the product of two other numbers, minus one.
For example, let's start with the number 7. To find the next number in the chain, we multiply 7 by 2 and add 1 to get 15. Then we take 15 and multiply it by 2 and add 1 to get 31.
We keep doing this until we can't find a new number that fits the pattern.
Why is this important? Well, these chains help mathematicians study something called prime numbers, which are like special numbers that only have two factors (like 2 and 3 for the number 6).
By looking at the numbers in a Cunningham chain, mathematicians can sometimes find interesting patterns in prime numbers and better understand how they work. Pretty cool, huh?
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