See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/371081396

Open Problems in Number Theory

Chapter · May 2023

DOI: 10.1142/9789811272608

CITATIONS READS

0 271

1 author:

Pradip Debnath
Tezpur University
91 PUBLICATIONS 808 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Pradip Debnath on 27 May 2023.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 c 2023 World Scientific Publishing Company
https://doi.org/10.1142/9789811272608 0001
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

Chapter 1
Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

Open Problems in Number Theory

Pradip Debnath
Department of Applied Science and Humanities,
Assam University, Silchar, Cachar 788011, Assam, India
[email protected]
[email protected]

In spite of being one of the oldest branches of mathematics, number

theory has an abundance of unsolved and open problems. It will require
multiple volumes of a book to list out even a portion of those open prob-
lems. Our aim in this introductory chapter is to provide brief commen-
tary about the most celebrated open problems and the progress toward
their solutions. New research directions are also indicated accordingly.

1. Introduction

Number theory primarily deals with attributes of the integers and

more specifically with the positive integers (i.e. natural numbers).
This nomenclature is considered as a misnomer because by the word
number, the early Greeks meant only the positive integers.
A number greater than 1 is prime if its only positive divisors
are 1 and itself. It is also well known that every positive integer
greater than 1 can be represented as a product of primes and the
representation is unique apart from the order in which the prime
factors occur.

1
 2 P. Debnath

The set of positive integers can be partitioned into three classes:

• The unit 1
• The prime numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, . . .
• The composite numbers 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, . . .
The primes have fascinated mathematicians since the time of
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

Euclid who proved that there is an infinitude of them.

Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

Theorem 1 (Euclid, 350 BC). There are infinitely many primes.

Proof. Suppose that there are finite number of primes and
p1 , p2 , p3 , . . . , pn is the finite list of primes. Consider the product
P = p1 p2 p3 . . . pn and let K = P + 1. Since K > 1, it must have
a prime divisor p. Hence, p must be one of p1 , p2 , p3 , . . . , pn . Now,
since p divides K and the product P , we must have p divides 1, a
contradiction. Therefore, there are infinitely many primes. 
Dirichlet’s theorem further extends Euclid’s result.
Theorem 2 (Dirichlet, 1837). Let a, d ∈ Z and gcd(a, d) = 1.
Then there are infinitely many primes in the sequence a, a + d, a +
2d, . . . , a + nd. . . . for n ∈ N.
Alternately, Dirichlet’s theorem states that there are infinitely
many primes congruent to a modulo d. Further, the numbers of the
form a + nd generate an arithmetic progression and this theorem
asserts that this sequence contains infinitely many primes.
Dirichlet’s theorem also gives assurance to the existence of primes
of particular form. For instance, it ensures that there are infinite
number of primes ending with 777 such as 1777, 1000777, . . . because
these numbers belong to the arithmetic progression a + nd, where
gcd(777, 1000) = 1.
The most celebrated result concerning the distribution of primes
is however the famously known prime number theorem, which was
independently proved by Hadamard and Poussin.
Theorem 3 (Hadamard and Poussin, 1896). Let π(x) be the
number of primes less than or equal to x. Then logx x is a good approx-
imation to π(x) in the sense that
π(x)
lim   = 1.
x→∞ x
log x
 Open Problems in Number Theory 3

Using asymptotic notation, in 1792, Gauss stated the prime num-

ber theorem as
x
π(x) ≈ .
log x

 n dx Gauss refined his estimate to π(x) ≈ Li(x), where Li(x) =

Later,
2 ln x is the logarithmic integral.
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

In spite of being one of the ancient branches of mathematics,

Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

number theory has an abundance of unsolved and open problems.

It will require multiple volumes of a book to list out even a portion
of those open problems. Our aim in this chapter is to provide a
brief commentary about the most celebrated open problems and the
progress toward their solutions.
From the following section onwards, we present our discussion on
some famous unsolved and open problems in number theory.

2. Twin Prime Conjecture

A pair of primes are said to be twin primes if their difference is 2, i.e.

the pair is of the form (p, p + 2). The first few twin prime pairs
are (3, 5), (5, 7), (11, 13), (17, 19), (29, 31), (41, 43), (59, 61), (71, 73),
(101, 103), (107, 109), (137, 139), . . ..
The question of whether or not there are infinitely many twin
primes has remained unsolved till date. The twin prime conjecture
states that there are infinitely many primes p such that p + 2 is also
a prime.
In 1849, a more general conjecture was made by de Polignac that
for every natural number k, there are infinitely many primes p such
that p+2k is a prime. Obviously, when k = 1, de Polignac’s conjecture
reduces to the twin prime conjecture.
The following important results related to twin primes are con-
sequences of Wilson’s theorem [(p − 1)! ≡ −1 mod p, p is a prime]:
• Clements, 1949: m, m + 2 are twin primes if and only if
4[(m − 1)! + 1] + m ≡ 0 mod m(m + 2).
• Sergusov, 1971: m, m + 2 are twin primes if and only if
φ(k)σ(k) = (k − 3)(k + 1), where k = m(m + 2) and φ is Euler’s
totient function (i.e. φ(k) counts the number of positive integers
up to k that are relatively prime to k) and σ(k) is the sum of
positive divisors of k (including 1 and k).
 4 P. Debnath

1
It is a well known result due to Euler that the infinite series p
over all primes diverges.
However, in 1919, Norwegian mathematician Viggo Brun proved
a remarkable theorem which states that the sum of reciprocals of all
the twin primes converges to a finite value known as Brun’s constant
which is approximately equal to 1.90216054. Formally, this theorem
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

may be stated as follows.

Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

Theorem 4 (Brun’s theorem, 1919). If P denotes the set of

twin primes, then the summation
 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
+ = + + + + + + + ···
p p+2 3 5 5 7 11 13 17 19
p,p+2∈P

either has finitely or infinitely many terms but converges to Brun’s

constant.
Chinese mathematician Jing-Run Chen, in 1966 (published in
1978) proved the following which is quite close to proving that there
are infinite number of twin primes:
Theorem 5 (Chen, 1978). There are infinitely many primes p
such that (p + 2) is either prime or the product of two primes.
In 2013, Chinese mathematician Yitan Zhang came out with a
breakthrough result which is also known as the weak conjecture of
twin primes. His theorem roughly states that there are infinitely
many pairs of primes that differ by a positive integer which is less
than 70 million.
Theorem 6 (Zhang, 2013). There exists an even integer M ≥ 2
with the property that there are infinitely many primes of the form
(p, p + M ). In fact, there exists an M with M ≤ 7 × 107 .
It was only a matter of time that the upper bound of 70 million in
Zhang’s theorem got reduced significantly. By July 2013, Australian
mathematician Terence Tao, via his Polymath8 project, had a
remarkable contribution in reducing this upper bound from 70 million
to merely 4680.
In November 2013, British mathematician James Maynard pre-
sented an independent proof that pushed down the gap in Zhang’s
 Open Problems in Number Theory 5

theorem to 600. In 2014, Indo-Canadian mathematician M. R.

Pedaprolu Murty at Queen’s University also contributed to major
developments in this direction. As of April 2014, the gap has been
reduced to 246 using the methods of Maynard and Tao. The reduc-
tion of the gap up to 2 is still awaited.
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

3. The Goldbach Conjecture

Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

In 1742, German mathematician Christian Goldbach came up with

the conjecture that every positive even integer greater than 2 is the
sum of two prime numbers. Despite considerable efforts, this conjec-
ture remains unproven till date.
With the help of computer programming, as of 2013, the conjec-
ture has been verified completely to hold true for all integers up to
4 × 1018 .
The weak Goldbach conjecture states that every odd positive inte-
ger greater than 5 can be written as the sum of three primes. Vino-
gradov’s three primes theorem (1930) is worth mentioning here which
states that any sufficiently large odd integer can be represented
as the sum of three primes. After enormous efforts, in 2002, the
weak Goldbach conjecture was verified for odd numbers greater than
2×101346 . In 2013, the Peruvian mathematician Harald Helfgott came
up with his magnificent proof that the weak Goldbach conjecture
is true.

4. The Riemann Hypothesis

By R(s) and I(s), we denote the real and imaginary parts of the com-
plex variable s, respectively. In 1859, Riemann published a ground-
breaking article in which he obtained an analytic formula for the
number of primes up to a given limit by introducing the Riemann
zeta function as a function of the complex variable s, defined in the
complex half-plane R(s) > 1 in terms of the absolutely convergent
infinite series
∞
 1 1 1 1
ζ(s) = = s + s + s + ··· .
ns 1 2 3
n=1
 6 P. Debnath

Riemann showed that ζ(s) can be extended to C as a meromorphic

function having a simple pole at s = 1 with residue 1 and can be
derived from the functional equation
s 1−s
π −s/2 Γ ζ(s) = π −(1−s)/2 Γ ζ(1 − s).
2 2
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

The zeros of the zeta function, i.e. the solutions ω ∈ C of the equa-
tion ζ(ω) = 0, play a pivotal role in the representation of this formula.
Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

In this article, Riemann established the complex valued function ξ

defined in the following manner:
1 s
ξ(τ ) = s(s − 1)π −s/2 Γ ζ(s),
2 2
with s = 12 + iτ . He further established that ξ(τ ) is an even entire
function of τ and the imaginary parts of those zeros lie between −i/2
and i/2. He also speculated that in the range between 0 and T , the
function ξ(τ ) has approximately ( 2πT T
) log( 2π ) − 2π
T
zeros. Riemann
stated that within that range, all zeros were likely to be real.
It has been proven that the Riemann zeta function has zeros at
the negative even integers, i.e. ζ(s) = 0 for s = −2, −4, −6, . . . and
these zeros are known as trivial zeros of the zeta function. The other
roots of the zeta function are the complex numbers 12 + iα where α
is a root of ξ(τ ). The Riemann hypothesis is all about the locations
of the nontrivial zeros.
Riemann hypothesis. The nontrivial zeros of the Riemann zeta
function ζ(s) have real part equal to 12 .
The line 12 + it, t ∈ R is called the critical line and the domain
S = {ρ + it ∈ C : ρ ∈ [0, 1], t ∈ R} is called the critical strip. It is
a proven fact that there are no nontrivial zeros outside the critical
strip.
In the year 2000, Clay Mathematics Institute selected seven well-
known problems known as The Millennium Prize Problems and
pledged US dollar 1 million prize for the correct solution of any of
them. Riemann hypothesis is one of those seven problems.
Zeros of the Riemann zeta function are closely linked with the
distribution of primes. However, the uses and applications of the
Riemann hypothesis is vastly widespread in different branches of
science.
 Open Problems in Number Theory 7

There has been a colossal research toward proof of the hypothesis.

We list here some of the major developments in this direction:

• Hardy, 1914: There are infinitely many zeros of the Riemann zeta
function on the critical line.
• Selberg, 1942: If N (ζ) denotes the number of zeros of ζ(s) on the
critical line 12 + iτ such that τ ∈ (0, T ), then N (ζ) > C 2π
T T
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

log( 2π )
for some constant C ∈ (0, 1).
Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

• ζ(s) has no nontrivial zeros outside the critical strip.

• Levinson, 1974: On the critical line, ζ(s) has at least one-third
of its total nontrivial zeros. The bound was further improved to
two-fifth by Conrey in 1989.
• Van de Lune, Riele and Winter in 1986 computed the first
1,500,000,001 nontrivial zeros of ζ(s) and speculated that they all
were simple zeros.
• Ramanujan in 1914 gave an astonishing formula (without proof)
for ζ(2n + 1) which states that if α, β > 0, αβ = π 2 , then
∞
 k−2n−1
−n 1
α ζ(2n + 1) +
2 e2αk − 1
k=1
∞
 k−2n−1
−n 1
=β ζ(2n + 1) +
2 e2βk − 1
k=1


n+1
B2k B2n+2−2k
− 22n (−1)k αn+1−k β k ,
(2k)!(2n + 2 − 2k)!
k=0

where B2k denotes the 2kth Bernoulli number. Berndt gave a com-
plete proof of this formula in 1977.
• Finding the exact order of the error term in the prime number the-
orem is one of the most famous and important problems in number
theory. In 1901, Koch showed that if the Riemann hypothesis were
true, then
√
π(x) = Li(x) + O( x ln x),

where O(x) is the asymptotic notation Big-O.

• There have been numerous claims for the proof of Riemann
hypothesis, but none of them happened to be correct. In 2018,
 8 P. Debnath

British mathematician Michael Atiyah at the Heidelberg Laure-

ate Forum gave a lecture in which he claimed to have proved
the hypothesis. But unfortunately, his proof also turned out to
be another failed attempt.
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

5. The Mersenne Primes

Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

Named after the 17th century French mathematician Martin

Mersenne, a Mersenne prime is a prime number which is one less
than a power of two. Hence, these are prime numbers of the form
Mn = 2n − 1 for some positive integer n. When the primality condi-
tion is dropped, a number of this form is called a Mersenne number.
In his book Cogitata Physica-Mathematica (1644), Mersenne
(incorrectly) conjectured that Mp is prime for p = 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19,
31, 67, 127, 257 and composite for all other primes less than 257. More
than 300 years later, by 1947, Mersenne’s list was corrected to

p = 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 61, 89, 107, 127.

Thus, Mersenne erroneously conjectured that M67 and M257 are

primes and missed M61 , M89 and M107 from his predicted list. Since
1997, all the newly discovered Mersenne primes have been obtained
by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, which is a distributed
computing project. As of 2020, 51 Mersenne primes have been dis-
covered and the 51st is 282,589,933 − 1.
There was another conjecture that if Mn is a prime, then so is
MMn . If this conjecture were true, it would mean that there are
infinitely many Mersenne primes. However, in 1953, a computer
search proved that MM13 is composite.
Hence, there remain several open problems about Mersenne
primes:

• Is the number of Mersenne primes infinite?

• Is it that every Mersenne number happens to be square free?
• Are there infinitely many composite Mersenne numbers?

A positive integer n is said to be perfect if n is equal to the sum

of all its positive divisors, excluding n itself.
 Open Problems in Number Theory 9

The numbers 6, 28, 496, 8128, . . . are perfect. However, all the per-
fect numbers discovered till date are even. A famous open question
is as follows:
• Are there odd perfect numbers?
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

6. The Fermat Numbers

Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

Another class of numbers that provide us with a rich source of open

problems and conjectures is the Fermat numbers.
n
A Fermat number is a number of the form Fn = 22 + 1 for n ≥ 0.
If Fn is prime, it is called a Fermat prime.
Fermat observed that F0 = 3, F1 = 5, F2 = 17, F3 = 257, F4 =
65537 are all primes and believed that Fn is a prime for each n ≥ 0.
However, this belief was resolved in the negative by Euler in 1732 as
he observed that F5 = 429, 496, 7297 is divisible by 641.
Similar to Mersenne numbers, we have the following open ques-
tions:
• Is the number of Fermat primes infinite?
• Is it true that every Fermat number is square free?
• Is the number of composite Fermat numbers infinite?

7. Some Other Famous Open Problems

It is quite clear from the present discussion that one could make a
conjecture that there are infinitely many open problems in number
theory. In this section, we list out some other famous open problems:

• The Fibonacci numbers may be defined by the following recurrence

relation:

F0 = 1, F1 = 1 and Fn = Fn−1 + Fn+2

for n > 1.
Thus, Fibonacci numbers form a sequence in which each number
is the sum of the two preceding ones. A prime number is said
to be Fibonacci prime if it appears in the Fibonacci sequence.
 10 P. Debnath

An important open question is as follows: are there infinitely many

Fibonacci primes?
• If an odd prime number p does not divide the numerator of the
Bernoulli number Bk , for all even k ≤ p−3, then it is called regular.
An irregular prime is an odd prime that is not regular. The odd
numbers 3, 5, 7, . . . , 31 are all regular. 37 is the first irregular prime.
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

The infinitude of irregular primes is a well-known fact. However,

the following question is open: is the number of regular primes
Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

infinite?
• The Euler constant γ is defined as

n
1
γ = lim − ln n .
n→∞ k
k=1
It is an open problem whether the Euler constant γ is irrational
or rational. The question about γ being transcendental is also an
open problem.
• The set of Gaussian integers Z[i] is a unique factorization domain
(UFD). However, there exist m ∈ Z such that Z[m] is not a UFD.
Exactly nine negative integers have been discovered, known as
Heegner numbers, for which Z[m] is a UFD. These numbers are
−1, −2, −3, −7, −11, −19, −43, −67, −163.
It is still not established whether there are infinitely many positive
integers m so that Z[m] is a UFD.
• For the Riemann zeta function ζ(s), the value of ζ(3) is well known
as the Apéry constant and it is an irrational number. The question
about Apéry constant being transcendental is an open problem.
Further, the values of ζ(2k + 1), for all k ∈ N, being irrational or
transcendental also remains unsolved.
• Lothar Collatz in 1937 introduced an idea which is popularly
known as Collatz conjecture or 3n + 1 problem. Paul Erdös,
who offered USD 500 for its correct solution, stated about this
conjecture as follows: “Mathematics may not be ready for such
problems.”
To state the problem formally, choose a positive integer a0 and
construct the sequence {an } as
⎧a
⎨ n, if an is even,
an+1 = 2
⎩
3an + 1, if an is odd.
 Open Problems in Number Theory 11

For example, if we choose a0 = 1, we obtain the sequence

1, 4, 2, 1, . . ., which repeats in the triplet 1, 4, 2. The Collatz con-
jecture states that if we initiate with any positive number a0 , the
sequence will eventually take the value 1. The conjecture remains
unproved till date.
• Lagrange’s four-square theorem of 1770 states that every natural
by 47.29.51.16 on 05/26/23. Re-use and distribution is strictly not permitted, except for Open Access articles.

number can be expressed as the sum of four integer squares. In the

same year, Waring raised the question: how about the minimum
Advances in Number Theory and Applied Analysis Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com

number of cubes to do the same? More generally, he wanted to

obtain the minimum number of kth powers necessary to express all
positive integers. This open problem is known as Waring’s problem.

Acknowledgments

For this chapter, much information has been collected from Refs. 1–8
and the references therein.
The author acknowledges the constructive comments and sugges-
tions received from Prof. Bruce C. Berndt (University of Illinois,
USA), Prof. Thomas C. Brown (Simon Fraser University, Canada)
and Prof. Shigeru Kanemitsu (Kindai University, Japan) towards
improving this manuscript.

References

1. T. M. Apostol, Introduction to Analytic Number Theory. Springer-

Verlag, New York (1976).
2. B. C. Berndt, Modular transformations and generalizations of several
formulae of Ramanujan, Rocky Mountain J. Math. 7, 147–189 (1977).
3. D. M. Burton, Elementary Number Theory, 7th edn. McGraw Hill Edu-
cation, New York, US (2017).
4. R. Crandall and C. Pomerance, Prime Numbers: A Computational Per-
spective, 2nd edn. Springer, New York, US (2005).
5. H. M. Edwardsl, Riemann’s Zeta Function. Academic Press, New York
- London (1974).
6. R. K. Guy, Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 3rd edn. Springer,
New York (2004).
7. P. Ribenboim, Prime Numbers, Friends Who Give Problems: A Tria-
logue With Papa Paulo. World Scientific, Singapore (2017).
8. D. Shanks, Solved and Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 4th edn.
American Mathematical Society, Providence, RI (2003).

View publication stats