Talk:Pillai prime

Who proved their infinitude?
From the article:
 * Pillai primes are named after the mathematician Subbayya Sivasankaranarayana Pillai, who proved that there are infinitely many Pillai primes.

But [1] says
 * Astonishingly simple, but rather tricky solutions were found in 1993 by Paul Erdos and independently by [Subbarao].

This article, written in commemoration of Pillai's centenary, does not mention that Pillai proved that these primes were infinite in number, but only credited him with posing the problem.

Is there a reason to think Pillai proved this, or should we change the article?

References: 1. G. E. Hardy and M. V. Subbarao, A Modified Problem of Pillai and Some Related Questions (2001). 2. S. S. Pillai, Question 1490, J. Indian Math. Soc. 18 (1930) 230.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:40, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You added it was Pillai in . I haven't seen this elsewhere. Subbayya is part of Pillai's name. Could you have confused this with Subbarao? Richard K. Guy's Unsolved Problems in Number Theory mentions your [1] and says : "G. E. Hardy and Subbarao prove that there are infinitely many Pillai primes". PrimeHunter (talk) 00:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The blockhead who added it must have copied it from another Wikipedia article. I'm removing it. CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:25, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I changed it; feel free to alter my atrocious phrasing. CRGreathouse (t | c) 01:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)