3 ms·
That list would be as long as the list of "all even numbers" because any list of primes immediately gives you a next prime that should be on the list, but isn't
by TheRealPomax 9y ago
That list would be as long as the list of "all even numbers" because any list of primes immediately gives you a next prime that should be on the list, but isn't, in the same way that having a list of even numbers immediately gives you the next even number that should be on that list but isn't:
Given an ordered list of primes {2,3,5,...,n} one (of several) immediately known next prime number is simply (2 x 3 x 5 x ... x n) + 1. We know that number's prime because it cannot be cleanly divided by 2, or 3, or 5, or ..., or n.
As such, even if it might be useful to have a list of all known primes, annotated with what kind of prime each number is, such a list cannot be constructed: even just the subset of all prime numbers generated based on the simple above rule would be infinitely long, just like the list of all even numbers is infinitely long.