An Interesting Prime

Being born on the 3rd April 1949, my date of birth is often represented as 3 - 4 - 49. These numbers when concatenated form the prime number 3449. I was reminded of this number because of the factorisation of the number associated with my diurnal age today, 27592.$$27592 = 2^3 \times 3449 = 8 \times 3449$$So today my life can be divided into exactly eight equal parts, each of them 3449 days long which is about 9.44 years. The previous multiple$$7 \times 3449 = 24143$$occurred on May 10th 2015 when I was still working at the Shanghai Singapore International School. The next multiple$$9 \times 3449 = 31041$$ will fall on March 29th 2034, shortly before my 84th birthday (if I make it that far).

3449 forms the initial prime of a Cunningham chain of the first type with length exactly 3 and so: $$ 3449 \rightarrow 2 \times 3449 + 1 = 6889 \text{ (prime)} \\ 6889 \rightarrow 2 \times 6889 +1 = 13799 \text{ (prime)}$$Primes with this property form OEIS A059762. Another prime-related property of 3449 qualifies it for membership in OEIS A088483:

A088483: primes \( \textit{p} \) such that \(p^2+p-1\) and \(p^2+p+1\) are twin primes.

For 3449, the twin primes are \(11899049\) and \(11899051\). 

3449 is also a home prime with a homeliness of 3 because:$$ \begin{align} 611 &= 13 \times 47 \rightarrow 1347\\ 1347 &= 3 \times 449 \rightarrow 3449 \end{align}$$Not all primes are home primes of course. Take 613 as an example of a prime that is not a home prime because it cannot be formed by the concatenation of the prime factors of any number (the prime factors need to be concatenated in ascending order).

3449 is also a member of OEIS A153116:

A153116: primes \(p\) such that \(p^2 +12\) and \(p^2-12\) are also primes.

Here the two primes are \(11895589\) and \(11895613\). Additionally:$$ \text{period of}\frac{1}{3449}=\frac{3449-1}{8} = 431$$This property qualifies 3449 for membership of OEIS A056213:

A056213: primes \(p\) for which the period of reciprocal = \(\dfrac{p-1}{8}\).

3449 is a Sophie Germain prime because:$$2 \times 3449+1=6899 \text{ is prime}$$3449 also features in so-called "Golden Semiprimes" and this qualifies it for membership in OEIS A108544:

A108544: primes that are factors of distinct golden semiprimes (A108540).

I posted about these types of semiprimes in Semiprime Factor Ratios way back on the 26th August 2016. In that post I said that:

A golden semiprime is a number that factors to:

• \(p \times q\) where \(p\) and \(q\) are prime
• \( | \,p \, \phi - q \,| <1\) where \(\phi=\dfrac{\sqrt{5}+1}{2} \)

In the case of 3449, it is the \(q\) and \(p=2131\) and the golden semiprime is:$$7349819=2131 \times 3449$$The OEIS mentions 314 sequences in which 3449 makes an appearance and I've only dealt with a few of them here. However, I see 3449 as an important number in my life and didn't want its current occurrence to pass unnoticed.

Semiprime Factor Ratios

All biprimes (or semiprimes or 2-almost-primes) can be visualised as unique rectangles and all triprimes (or 3-almost-primes) as rectangular prisms. I only intend to deal with biprimes in this post. Let's take a recent biprime, 24581 = 47 x 523, as a starting point. It can be visualised as a rectangle with a width of 47 units and a length of 523 units. It's the ratio of width to length that's of interest. 

A golden semiprime is defined as a number that factors to: 

• \(p \times q\) (with \(p<q\)) and
• \( |p \times \phi-q|<1 \), where \( \phi\) is the golden ratio of \( \dfrac{1+\sqrt 5}{2} \)

Clearly 24581 does not satisfy this condition and not many semiprimes do. The next for me is 27641 which factors to 131 × 211 and where:$$|131\times \phi-211| \approx 0.9624525$$and so it just barely satisfies the criterion. Here is a partial list as shown in OEIS A108540:

6, 15, 77, 187, 589, 851, 1363, 2183, 2747, 7303, 10033, 15229, 16463, 17201, 18511, 27641, 35909, 42869, 45257, 53033, 60409, 83309, 93749, 118969, 124373, 129331, 156433, 201563, 217631, 232327, 237077, 255271, 270349, 283663, 303533, 326423

Presumably there is an infinity of golden semiprimes. There are other ratios of interest, for example pi. Here the number 154 = 7 x 22 could be treated in a manner similar to the golden semiprimes and the question asked as to whether \( |7 \times \pi-22| \) is less than 1. It turns out that it is (0.9911...) and so could perhaps be termed a circular semiprime. The number 15883 = 71 x 223 yields a much closer result (0.053...). Similarly for \(e\), the number 133 = 7 x 19 yields \( |7 \times e - 19| \approx 0.02797 \) and could be termed an Euler semiprime for want of a better term. 

Some semiprimes are not related to special mathematical constants but are nonetheless of interest. For instance, for Friday 26th August 2016 (the day I'm completing this post), my number 24617 = 239 x 103 and the ratio 239:103 can be expressed approximately as 2.32:1 (rounding off 2.320388... to two decimal places). This is very close to the aspect ratio for the current widescreen cinema standard of 2.35:1 or 2.39:1. However, following the pattern for the golden semiprime ratio, the result of \( |103 \times 2.35-239|=3.05 \) and \( |103 \times 2.39-239|=7.17 \) mean that the results are outside the acceptable range (less than 1).

Another way to view the ratio 239:103 is as 0.69883:0.30117 and if we round off to two decimal places, the result is 0.70:0.30 or 70% : 30%. This is the ratio of copper to zinc in so-called Cartridge brass described as follows:

70/30 brass has excellent ductility and good strength. It is often used where its deep drawing qualities are needed. The alloy is the most common brass in sheet form (source).

I guess the concept of the golden semiprime has opened my eyes to other classifications of semiprimes based on other constants such \(e\) and \( \pi\). Expressing the ratio in such a way that both sides sum to 1 is also useful because, as in the case of 0.70:0.30, connections to physical applications can be drawn.

on August 30th 2021

Golden Semiprimes

Today I am 24534 days old and when checking this number on OEIS I came across the following:

Not having heard of the term before, I investigated what defined a golden semiprime. Below is the OEIS reference:

In today's case of 24534, the sum of the digits is 18 and the factorisation is 2×3^2×29×47, so n/(sum of digits of n) is 29 x 47. Now the absolute value of  29 x ø - 47 is approximately 0.077 and thus the criterion for a golden semiprime is satisfied. As can be seen from the list in OEIS A108542, such semiprimes are relatively sparse.

The significance of the concept is that it identifies that the fact that the two factors making up the semiprime are very nearly in the golden ratio. Of course the factors cannot be in the exact ratio because ø is not rational. Again, I've learned something quite interesting by keeping track of my daily numbers.