Fortunate number Fortunate number A Fortunate number, named after Reo Fortune, is the smallest integer "m" > 1 such that, for a given positive integer "n", "p"# + "m" is a prime number, where the primorial "p"# is the product of the first "n" prime numbers. For example, to find the seventh Fortunate number, one would first calculate the product of the first seven primes (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 17), which is 510510. Adding 2 to that gives another even number, while adding 3 would give another multiple of 3. One would similarly rule out the integers up to
Prime number formula_18, and Marin Mersenne studied the Mersenne primes, prime numbers of the form formula_19 with formula_20 itself a prime. Christian Goldbach formulated Goldbach's conjecture, that every even number is the sum of two primes, in a 1742 letter to Euler. Euler proved Alhazen's conjecture (now the Euclid–Euler theorem) that all even perfect numbers can be constructed from Mersenne primes. He introduced methods from mathematical analysis to this area in his proofs of the infinitude of the primes and the divergence of the sum of the reciprocals of the primes formula_21. At the start of the 19th century, Legendre and Gauss