A113404 - OEIS (original) (raw)

(1) Upper bound: gaps between prime quadruplets (p, p+2, p+6, p+8) are smaller than 0.241*(log p)^5, where p is the prime at the end of the gap.

(2) Estimate for the actual size of the maximal gap that ends at p: maximal gap = a*(log(p/a)-0.55), where a = 0.241*(log p)^4 is the average gap between quadruplets near p, as predicted by the Hardy-Littlewood k-tuple conjecture.

Formulas (1) and (2) are asymptotically equal as p tends to infinity. However, (1) yields values greater than all known gaps, while (2) yields "good guesses" that may be either above or below the actual size of known maximal gaps.

Both formulas (1) and (2) are derived from the Hardy-Littlewood k-tuple conjecture via probability-based heuristics relating the expected maximal gap size to the average gap. Neither of the formulas has a rigorous proof (the k-tuple conjecture itself has no formal proof either). In both formulas, the constant ~0.241 is reciprocal to the Hardy-Littlewood 4-tuple constant 4.15118... (End)