Delicate prime
A delicate prime (also known as weakly prime) is a special type of prime number, where if any of its digits are changed to another digit (from 0 to 9), it is no longer a prime number.
Examples of Delicate Primes
[change | change source]The smallest delicate prime number is the number 294001. It is a prime number, but if you change any of the digits (2, 9, 4, 0, 0, or 1) to another number, the new number will not be prime. For example:
- If you change the first digit from 2 to 1, you get 194001, which is not a prime number.
- If you change the second digit from 9 to 8, you get 284001, which is also not a prime number.
The first 20 delicate primes are 294001, 505447, 584141, 604171, 971767, 1062599, 1282529, 1524181, 2017963, 2474431, 2690201, 3085553, 3326489, 4393139, 5152507, 5564453, 5575259, 6173731, 6191371, and 6236179.[1]
Why are they special?
[change | change source]Delicate primes are special because even a small change in their digits turns them into a composite number (a number that is not prime). This makes them rare and interesting to mathematicians.
Finding delicate primes
[change | change source]It is not easy to find delicate primes because there are not many of them. Mathematicians use computers and special methods to search for these numbers.