Bertrand's postulate (actually a theorem) states that if n > 3 is an integer, then there always exists at least one prime number p with n < p < 2n − 2. A weaker but more elegant formulation is: for every n > 1 there is always at least one prime p such that n < p < 2n.

This statement was first conjectured in 1845 by Joseph Bertrand (1822–1900). Bertrand himself verified his statement for all numbers in the interval [2, 3 × 10⁶]. His conjecture was completely proved by Chebyshev (1821–1894) in 1850 and so the postulate is also called the Bertrand-Chebyshev theorem or Chebyshev's theorem. Ramanujan (1887–1920) gave a simpler proof [1], from which the concept of Ramanujan primes would later arise, and Erdős (1913–1996) in 1932 published a simpler proof using the Chebyshev function , defined as:

where p ≤ x runs over primes, and the binomial coefficients. See proof of Bertrand's postulate for the details.

Sylvester's theorem

Bertrand's postulate was proposed for applications to permutation groups. Sylvester (1814–1897) generalized it with the statement: the product of k consecutive integers greater than k is divisible by a prime greater than k.

Erdős's theorems

Erdős proved that for any positive integer k, there is a natural number N such that for all n > N, there are at least k primes between n and 2n.

The prime number theorem (PNT) suggests that the number of primes between n and 2n is roughly n/ln(n) when n is large, and so in particular there are many more primes in this interval than are guaranteed by Bertrand's Postulate. That is, this theorem is comparatively weaker than the PNT. However, in order to use the PNT to prove results like Bertrand's Postulate, we would have to have very tight bounds on the error terms in the theorem—that is, we have to know fairly precisely what "roughly" means in the PNT. Such error estimates are available but are very difficult to prove (and the estimates are only sufficient for large values of n). By contrast, Bertrand's Postulate can be stated more memorably and proved more easily, and makes precise claims about what happens for small values of n. (In addition, Chebyshev's theorem was proved before the PNT and so has historical interest.)

The similar and still unsolved Legendre's conjecture asks whether for every n > 1, there is a prime p, such that n² < p < (n + 1)². Again we expect that there will be not just one but many primes between n² and (n + 1)², but in this case the PNT doesn't help: the number of primes up to x² is asymptotic to x²/log(x²) while the number of primes up to (x+1)² is asymptotic to (x+1)²/log((x+1)²), which is asymptotic to the estimate on primes up to x². So unlike the previous case of x and 2x we don't get a proof of Legendre's conjecture even for all large n. Error estimates on the PNT are not (indeed, cannot be) sufficient to prove the existence of even one prime in this interval.

Better results

It follows from the prime number theorem that for any real k > 1, there exists an n0 such that there is always a prime between n and kn for all n > n0: it can be shown, for instance, that as , , which means that (and in particular is greater than 1 for sufficiently large n).

Non-asymptotic bounds have been also been proved. In 1952, Jitsuro Nagura proved that for n > 24, there is always a prime between n and (1 + 1 / 5)n.[2]

In 1976, Lowell Schoenfeld showed that for , there is always a prime between n and (1 + 1 / 16597)n.[3] In 1998, Pierre Dusart improved the result in his doctoral thesis, showing that for , , and in particular for , there exists a prime number between and .[4]

Consequences

One consequence of Bertrand's postulate is that the sequence of primes, regarding 1 as prime, is a complete sequence; any positive integer can be written as a sum of primes (and 1) using each at most once.

References

1. ^ Ramanujan, S. (1919). "A proof of Bertrand's postulate". Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society 11: 181–182. http://www.imsc.res.in/~rao/ramanujan/CamUnivCpapers/Cpaper24/page1.htm
2. ^ Nagura, J. "On the interval containing at least one prime number." Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Series A 28 (1952), pp. 177–181.
3. ^ Lowell Schoenfeld (April 1976). "Sharper Bounds for the Chebyshev Functions θ(x) and ψ(x), II". Mathematics of Computation 30 (134): 337–360.
4. ^ Autour de la fonction qui compte le nombre de nombres premiers (French)

* P. Erdős (1934). "A Theorem of Sylvester and Schur". J. London Math. Soc. 9: 282–288. doi:10.1112/jlms/s1-9.4.282.
* Jitsuro Nagura (1952). "On the interval containing at least one prime number". Proc. Japan Acad. 28: 177–181. doi:10.3792/pja/1195570997.
* Jonathan Sondow and Eric W. Weisstein, "Bertrand's Postulate" from MathWorld.
* Chris Caldwell, Bertrand's postulate at Prime Pages glossary.
* H. Ricardo (2005). "Goldbach's Conjecture Implies Bertrand's Postulate". Amer. Math. Monthly 112: 492.
* Hugh L. Montgomery; Robert C. Vaughan (2007). Multiplicative number theory I. Classical theory. Cambridge tracts in advanced mathematics. 97. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press. p. 49. ISBN 0-521-84903-9.