about Sociology - online encyclopedia
 
Sociology for Beginners Sociology Main Menu    
 
 

Legendre's constant

Legendre's constant is a "phantom" that doesn't really exist.

Before the discovery of the prime number theorem, examination of available numerical evidence for known primes had led Legendre to conjecture that perhaps

\pi(n) = {n \over \ln(n) - A(n)}

where

\lim_{n \rightarrow \infty } A(n) \approx 1.08366\dots .

The quantity 1.08366... was called Legendre's constant. Later Gauss also examined the numerical evidence and concluded that the limit might be lower. In fact, the best limit value of A(n) turns out to be 1. Thus, there is no "Legendre's constant".

External link

MathWorld: Legendre's constant

01-04-2007 01:30:44
The contents of this article are licensed from Wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. How to see transparent copy

 

© 2005 About Sociology.com. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use and Disclaimer