A308394 Numbers which can be written in the form m^k - m with m prime and k a positive integer.

0, 2, 6, 14, 20, 24, 30, 42, 62, 78, 110, 120, 126, 156, 240, 254, 272, 336, 342, 506, 510, 620, 726, 812, 930, 1022, 1320, 1332, 1640, 1806, 2046, 2162, 2184, 2394, 2756, 3120, 3422, 3660, 4094, 4422, 4896, 4970, 5256, 6162, 6558, 6806, 6840, 7832, 8190, 9312

Offset: 1

Author

Craig J. Beisel, May 24 2019

Keywords

• nonn
• easy

Comments

The only known terms which have two representations where m is prime are 6 and 2184. It is conjectured by Bennett these are the only terms with this property.

Examples

			a(9) = 2^6 - 2 = 62.
For the two terms known to have two representations we have a(3) = 6 = 2^3 - 2 = 3^2 - 3 and a(33)= 2184 = 3^7 - 3 = 13^3 - 13.
		

Links

• Robert Israel, Table of n, a(n) for n = 1..10000
• Michael Bennett, On some exponential equations of S. S. Pillai, Canad. J. Math. 53 (2001), 897-922.
• Dana Mackenzie, 2184: An Absurd (and Adsurd) Tale, Integers (Electronic Journal of Combinatorial Number Theory), 18 (2018), A33.

Crossrefs

Cf. A057895, A057896, A246068, A308324.

Subsequences: A000918 (2^n - 2), A036689 (p^2 - p), A058809 (3^n - 3), A178671 (5^n - 5).

Programs

Maple

N:= 10^6; # to get all terms <= N
P:= select(isprime,[2,seq(i,i=3..floor((1+sqrt(1+4*N))/2),2)]):
S:= {0,seq(seq(m^k-m,k=2..floor(log[m](N+m))),m=P)}:
sort(convert(S,list)); # Robert Israel, Aug 11 2019

PARI

x=List([]); lim=10000; forprime(m=2, lim, for(k=1, 100, y=(m^k-m); if(y>lim, break, i=setsearch(x, y, 1); if(i>0, listinsert(x, y, i))))); for(i=1, #x, print(x[i]));

PARI

isok(n) = {forprime(p=2, oo, my(keepk = 0); for (k=1, oo, if ((x=p^k - p) == n, return(1)); if (x > n, keepk = k; break);); if (keepk == 2, break););} \\ Michel Marcus, Aug 06 2019