What I Learned from Reading “Gamma: Exploring Euler’s Constant” by Julian Havil: Part 3

At the time of this writing, it is unknown if there are infinitely many twin primes, which are prime numbers that differ by 2 (like 3 and 5, 5 and 7, 11 and 13, 17 and 19, etc.) However, significant progress has been made in recent years. However, it is known (Gamma, page 30) the sum of the reciprocals of the twin primes converges:

.

This constant is known as Brun’s constant (see also Mathworld). In the process of computing this number, the infamous 1994 Pentium bug was found.

Although this sum is finite, it’s still unknown if there are infinitely many twin primes since it’s possible for an infinite sum to converge (like a geometric series).

When I researching for my series of posts on conditional convergence, especially examples related to the constant , the reference Gamma: Exploring Euler’s Constant by Julian Havil kept popping up. Finally, I decided to splurge for the book, expecting a decent popular account of this number. After all, I’m a professional mathematician, and I took a graduate level class in analytic number theory. In short, I don’t expect to learn a whole lot when reading a popular science book other than perhaps some new pedagogical insights.

Boy, was I wrong. As I turned every page, it seemed I hit a new factoid that I had not known before.

In this series, I’d like to compile some of my favorites — while giving the book a very high recommendation.