A number theory problem by Hamza A

What is the probability that any 3 positive integers, chosen at random, are relatively prime?

Notations :

1 e γ \frac1{e^\gamma} γ e \frac{\gamma}e 1 3 \frac13 1 A \frac1A 1 ζ ( 2 ) \frac1{\zeta(2)} 1 π \frac1\pi 1 ζ ( 3 ) \frac1{\zeta(3)}

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

2 solutions

Santiago Hincapie
May 22, 2016

The probability that any number is divisible by a prime (or in fact any integer) P is 1 P \frac{1}{P} , for example, every 5th integer is divisible by 5. Hence the probability that n numbers are divisible by P is 1 P n \frac{1}{P^n} , and the probability that n numbers are coprimes is 1 1 P n = 1 P n 1-\frac{1}{P^n}=1-P^{-n} . Any finite collection of divisibility events associated to distinct primes is mutually independent so the probability that n numbers are coprime is given by a product over all primes p r i m e s 1 P n = [ p r i m e s 1 1 P n ] 1 \prod_{primes} 1-P^{-n} = \left[\prod_{primes} \frac{1}{1-P^{-n}}\right]^{-1} And by the Euler product formula [ p r i m e s 1 1 P n ] 1 = ζ ( n ) 1 \left[\prod_{primes} \frac{1}{1-P^{-n}}\right]^{-1}=\zeta(n)^{-1} now for n=3 the probability is equal to 1 ζ ( 3 ) \frac{1}{\zeta(3)}

What the problem states is that we choose randomly 3 positive integers (a,b,c), we know that 3 numbers will be relatively prime if and only if they have a greatest common divisor of 1. By definition the probability that n randomly chosen positive integers, are relatively prime is [ ζ ( 3 ) ] 1 [\zeta({3})]^{-1} look at https://mathworld.wolfram.com/RelativelyPrime.html

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...