Practical Number - Analogies With Prime Numbers

Analogies With Prime Numbers

One reason for interest in practical numbers is that many of their properties are similar to properties of the prime numbers. For example, if p(x) is the enumerating function of practical numbers, i.e., the number of practical numbers not exceeding x, Saias (1997) proved that for suitable constants c₁ and c₂:

a formula which resembles the prime number theorem. This result largely resolved a conjecture of Margenstern (1991) that p(x) is asymptotic to cx/log x for some constant c, and it strengthens an earlier claim of Erdős & Loxton (1979) that the practical numbers have density zero in the integers.

Theorems analogous to Goldbach's conjecture and the twin prime conjecture are also known for practical numbers: every positive even integer is the sum of two practical numbers, and there exist infinitely many triples of practical numbers x − 2, x, x + 2. Melfi also showed that there are infinitely many practical Fibonacci numbers (sequence A124105 in OEIS); the analogous question of the existence of infinitely many Fibonacci primes is open. Hausman & Shapiro (1984) showed that there always exists a practical number in the interval for any positive real x, a result analogous to Legendre's conjecture for primes.