# GPT o1 [[Try DeepSeek-R1]] ![[Try DeepSeek-R1#Problem]] [10001st Prime Number](https://chatgpt.com/c/67998217-17d0-800b-9965-2f34b6e02840) ``` --- **You said:** What is the 10001st prime number? --- **ChatGPT said:** Thought about finding prime numbers for a second The 10,001st prime number is **104,743**. This is a well-known result, for instance, from Project Euler’s Problem 7, which specifically asks for the 10,001st prime. --- **You said:** What is the 10001st prime number? Use mathematical technique. Don't use programming techniqe. --- **ChatGPT said:** Thought about prime number calculation for 6 seconds Below is an outline of how one can determine the 10,001st prime number **using mathematical (theoretical) techniques**, rather than writing or running code. Of course, doing all the details by pure hand is lengthy, but the method itself relies on well-established number-theoretic steps rather than programming. --- ## 1. Estimate an Upper Bound for the 10,001st Prime A common starting point is to use an approximation for the nn-th prime, provided by the Prime Number Theorem. It tells us that for large nn: pn≈nln⁡(n).pn​≈nln(n). For n=10,001n=10,001: 1. ln⁡(10,001)≈9.2103ln(10,001)≈9.2103 (using known logarithm tables or approximate expansions). 2. So a rough estimate of the 10,001st prime is10,001×9.2103≈92,120.10,001×9.2103≈92,120. To be safe (because this is only an approximation), we might allow some margin and pick a slightly larger number, say around 120,000 or 130,000, as an upper bound within which we will find the 10,001st prime. --- ## 2. Prepare to Check Which Numbers Are Prime There are two classical, purely mathematical techniques often used to identify all primes up to some bound: 1. **Trial Division by Known Primes** - You systematically check each candidate number kk by testing divisibility by primes not exceeding kk​. - This approach can be done by hand (theoretically) but is tedious for large numbers because you must keep track of each prime you have found so far. 2. **Sieve of Eratosthenes** (in principle, a mathematical method) - List all integers up to the chosen upper bound (say 120,000). - Repeatedly mark off multiples of each known prime starting from 2, 3, 5, etc. - Those that remain unmarked are prime. - You don’t have to program this; it can be done with pen and paper on a large grid (as was done historically), though it still involves a lot of manual labor if done entirely by hand. Either of these approaches is a “mathematical technique,” but in practice, it’s more convenient to do partial calculations, skip multiples systematically, and so on. Nevertheless, no computer code is necessary in principle. --- ## 3. Count the Primes Until You Reach the 10,001st Following either technique: 1. Start from the smallest prime, 2. 2. Keep listing primes in ascending order: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and so on. 3. Continue until you have identified exactly 10,001 primes. 4. Record the largest one you encountered in this enumeration. This method is the concept behind a (non-programmatic) “Sieve” or “Trial Division by Hand” for all primes under an appropriate limit. Historically, mathematicians did precisely these steps (though for smaller ranges) using written tables. --- ## 4. Result By a systematic count (the same count you would get if you carried out an Eratosthenes sieve by hand up to around 120,000), you find: $104,743$ is the **10,001st prime**. Though completing the entire sieve or trial division by hand is obviously large-scale manual work, the principle stands purely on classical, paper-and-pencil mathematics, without relying on programming. The number $104,743$ is a well-known and frequently verified result in mathematical circles (famously it appears in Project Euler Problem 7). --- ```