Suppose 2 natural numbers are chosen at random, what is the probability that they are relatively prime? if this is for integers find
generalize to natural numbers.
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If two numbers are coprime, it means that they have no common prime factors. That means that for each p , it cannot divide both numbers. The probability a number chosen at random is divisible by p is just p 1 , so the probability that p divides both is p − 2 and hence its complement is 1 − p − 2 . We take the product over all p and this is just p ∏ ( 1 − p − 2 ) = π 2 6 Similarly the general case is ζ ( n ) 1
There is an interesting way to do the case of two numbers by considering that the probability something is coprime to a is just a ϕ ( a ) , i leave it as an interesting exercise to the reader to do that.