On Thu, 02 Jan 1997 Alexander Chislenko <alexc@firefly.net> Wrote:
>I tried to estimate the chances that it [Goldbach Conjecture]
>can be disproven assuming random distribution of primes.
Primes are not distributed randomly, they become rarer as integers get bigger.
The number of primes less than integer X is approximately equal to X/logX ,
the larger the X the better the approximation.
>The chances, after a certain [low] threshold N, are
>virtually nil. [...] is it such a big deal to have a
>mathematical "fact" that is not *exactly* proven, but is
>certain to 99.9999999999999999999999% ?
I am flying to New York City for the first time. I know absolutely nothing
about the city except that 7 million people live there. The first person I
see when I get off the airplane is a woman. I conclude that there is a
99.9999999999999999999999% chance that everyone in New York City is a woman.
The situation is FAR worse when you talk about prime numbers, we have a
ridiculously tiny sample to work with, we have only found a few trillion
prime numbers and there are an INFINITE number of them.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.i
iQCzAgUBMsyWaH03wfSpid95AQGF6ATw5zmmWkmfj/FFqqvEC4MUXTbtTGHx6lA7
0v+mmYgn4gZwfQC5ZMvc8JJ3kIpM7MWEQ3wSpAEM6MguFfVpOq9XnSgTQgMoKpDt
X02LNowXOz0DWACvaKsNK+PsXkU7vnHk95u2X1yrbDBtcmee0RNNiXpMIe48XFlN
qNXBRdGR1oqxt5ErJ3LeTmfxJ2vmBV6VTM2MXvtp9+i1vGvArdc=
=o5o7
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----