Abstract
This article has a pedagogical aim. Indeed, we want to tackle the twin primes conjecture with an elementary and intuitive approach suitable for high schools. Perhaps it is needless to point out that this article does not have such a high goal of proving the conjecture but to give an intuitive idea of its validity. Research on prime numbers and related conjectures is so vast and advanced that it is impossible to fully address it in a high school. Hence, we want to analyze the twin primes from a didactic point of view and with the knowledge of high schools. Even a simple approach seems to indicate that there are infinitely many twin primes.
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4. Acknowledgments
The work was partially supported by research funds of the University of Salerno.
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Elmo Benedetto, PhD, teaches mathematics and physics at Francesco Seven High School. He is a research fellow and contract Professor at the University of Salerno and holds the National Scientific Qualification (ASN) as Associate Professor for the disciplinary field of applied physics, didactics and history of physics.
Gerardo Iovane holds three PhDs (subnuclear physics, mathematics and engineering) and is a National Scientific Expert at the Italian Ministry of University and Research. He is a Professor in the computer science department of the University of Salerno.
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Benedetto, E., Iovane, G. Heuristically Sifting Twins. Reson 28, 1505–1512 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-023-1687-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-023-1687-0