The 2021 Problem

Notice that 2021 is a concatenation of consecutive integers: 20\sim 21
Also 2021 is a product of consecutive primes: 43\times 47.

What is the next number with both of these properties?
24502451 is close, 4943\times 4957 but 4951 is in between.
2484224843 is close, 49831\times 49853 but 49843 is in between.
715353612\sim 715353607 isn’t quite there but is 845785793\times 845785799

With Mathematica, we can find more solutions.
794018604377235322848433897872605582 ~
794018604377235322848433897872605583 =
891077215721081784886888257701070827 ×
891077215721081784886888257701070829

2518711810848159770018909254809359591672377471484881441744436703324716 ~
2518711810848159770018909254809359591672377471484881441744436703324717 =
5018676928083894672666012088036109843105301546773725102790665815794437 ×
5018676928083894672666012088036109843105301546773725102790665815794441

353879205744237011544616255111782082608671961515039134082358165448687146 ~
353879205744237011544616255111782082608671961515039134082358165448687147 =
594877471202462845078583461328011525336167267541426222873827376039101347 ×
594877471202462845078583461328011525336167267541426222873827376039101401

Some code to use is the following:

modPass[k_] := Abs[Mod[k, 6, -1]] == 1;
solve2021[exp_,add_]:=
Module[{cases},
cases=Solve[{10^exp  a +(a+1) == b (b+add),10^(exp-1)< b<10^exp}, Integers];
If[Length[cases]>0,
Select[Select[b/.cases,modPass[#] && modPass[#+add]&], PrimeQ[#] && PrimeQ[#+add]&]]]

solve2021[36, 2]
{891077215721081784886888257701070827}
solve2021[70, 4]
{5018676928083894672666012088036109843105301546773725102790665815794437}
solve2021[72, 54]
{594877471202462845078583461328011525336167267541426222873827376039101347}

Still a bit more to check, there may be intervening primes. For example, solve2021[19, 76] has intervening primes.

What are other solutions?

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Here’s a list of hits and near misses. The first hit is (43+0)(43+4) = 2021. The first near miss is (53+0)(53+8) = 3233.

{{43,{0,4}}, {4999493,{0,14}}, {891077215721081784886888257701070827,{0,2}}, {5018676928083894672666012088036109843105301546773725102790665815794437,{0,4}}, {594877471202462845078583461328011525336167267541426222873827376039101347,{0,54}},
{53,{0,6,8}}, {4943,{0,8,14}}, {15541,{0,10,18}}, {49831,{0,12,22}}, {4437314920661962295348881728019584825055609007902269768049678912707397,{0,30,76}}, {39236533463,{0,86,114,128}}, {97090540284081007,{0,82,214,252}}, {3879052403643149143,{0,10,66,76}}, {61843,{0,18,28,36,66}}, {89925533,{0,20,26,48,60}}, {69783320419929621602037383,{0,6,84,120,230}}, {1706791026491912957048478532183,{0,46,54,66,106}}, {7955646631992522480129538315515466631309,{0,98,294,402,452}}}

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In fact, there are many more such examples, though very few of them involve twin primes.
With the terminology in the reply above, up to a<10^{323}, there appears to be only one such (a,b,add=2): 794018604377235322848433897872605582794018604377235322848433897872605583 = 891077215721081784886888257701070829 × 891077215721081784886888257701070827.

Using 40 Miller-Rabin iterations, I have obtained the following equalities, all with a LHS involving up to 644 digits:

25187118108481597700189092548093595916723774714848814417444367033247162518711810848159770018909254809359591672377471484881441744436703324717 = 5018676928083894672666012088036109843105301546773725102790665815794441 × 5018676928083894672666012088036109843105301546773725102790665815794437 (shown above)

101936573393229113746896078599158434015231091149521033461905493584141767240967286279147302756939077798218255227325457025854937718962600442639675514396101936573393229113746896078599158434015231091149521033461905493584141767240967286279147302756939077798218255227325457025854937718962600442639675514397 = 319275074807334613749250748026616288651767499918792546380748503672549086703203277071612100663412425258886294180722873606632627934423491347284352444051 × 319275074807334613749250748026616288651767499918792546380748503672549086703203277071612100663412425258886294180722873606632627934423491347284352444047

93919382143599443874360974179992284882076026690881005214561418008150790494258654795862966202627730222978744961557082451286192284357751247078089025462416769391938214359944387436097417999228488207602669088100521456141800815079049425865479586296620262773022297874496155708245128619228435775124707808902546241677 = 9691201274537612443672374967144909095364760038874719917817704809652025255645361670391758426040026736596675168244667860182899459759546967572708946339679961 × 9691201274537612443672374967144909095364760038874719917817704809652025255645361670391758426040026736596675168244667860182899459759546967572708946339679957

981718780415872785585564201031992816866441710921031298607709720433328082774757576994927683441599794030113676908258383896762642955368235301572285359675451074772206407951599583811274848830644325337802597091580076981718780415872785585564201031992816866441710921031298607709720433328082774757576994927683441599794030113676908258383896762642955368235301572285359675451074772206407951599583811274848830644325337802597091580077 = 990817228562297853620579821430841029476907621168021829447531348075063345099849542958089591111031777996054793781667515002540761697546809287372732881673066506036575450357354487060783218299272638998714542277310011 × 990817228562297853620579821430841029476907621168021829447531348075063345099849542958089591111031777996054793781667515002540761697546809287372732881673066506036575450357354487060783218299272638998714542277310007

et cetera.


The StackExchange post A 2021 problem: 20∼21 and 43×47 suggests a heuristic that the number of expected solutions with 2n digits is O(1/n). Judging by the sheer number of solutions, this heuristic is probably incorrect. An alternative model may have to be created.

In approaching this problem I formulated it through expressing it as a~(a+1)=p(p+2k), where p+2k is the prime after p. Simplification yields 100...01a+1=(p+k)^2-k^2, so 100...01a+1+k^2 becomes a square. The problem thus amounts to showing that 1+k^2 is a quadratic residue modulo 10^n+1, and when complete, finding all modular square roots of 1+k^2 and checking that the primality requirements are satisfied. (Namely, that p and p+2k are prime and all numbers in between are composite.)

One clear pattern found is that there are many such pairs with the same number of digits (n). For instance, with k=2 (cousin primes) there are 27 solutions with n=210 and none with 210<n<270. This is something that the heuristic mentioned cannot explain, but it is readily explained with this implementation. For n=210, 10^{210}+1 has 22 distinct prime factors, all of them having 5 as a Q.R.. This means that 5 has 2^{22}\approx 4\times 10^6 square roots mod 10^{210}+1. The density of primes at around 10^{210} is approximately 1 out of 210\ln10\approx 480, so the approximate expected number of solutions satisfying the two primality conditions is \frac{2^{22}}{480^2}\approx 18. Of course, this is also a heuristic as the true fluctuations of primes cannot be accounted for.

Another noteworthy pattern is that there are far more such pairs with k=2 (prime gap 4) than for any other choice of k. Among the 4 solutions Ed Pegg has found, 2 of them have prime gap 4, and one has prime gap 2. As it turns out, for n<323 there is only 1 solution with prime gap 2 but 40 solutions with prime gap 4. This may be related to our use of base 10, as prime factors of 10^n+1 tend to readily be congruent to 1 or 9 mod 10, so 5 is a QR mod 10^n+1 for many n. The same might not hold true for other k, as it is unlikely that all 22 prime factors of 10^{210}+1 should be such that an arbitrary number is a quadratic residue modulo these primes. (when this happens, which is exceedingly rare, there may be several solutions.

Overall, this is an extremely fascinating and deep problem. May 2021 be a uniquely good year!


Extra info: I have obtained that for k=38, 1+k^2=1445=5\times 17^2, so that 1445 is a Q.R. mod 10^n+1 if 5 is one. Therefore, one can observe that for k=38 or 682, it is expected that there would be multiple solutions with n=210 or 270, where there were many solutions for k=2. (For k=682, there is a chance that the numbers between the two primes may not be prime, but considering that heuristically reduces the number by only a factor of 4.)
[1]: https://math.stackexchange.com/questions/3961535/a-2021-problem-20-sim-21-and-43-times-47?fbclid=IwAR1MVuIK6La4FuIkguNz8hk4mXOlA2aOclXLOXr_5yZLC3p_-PxircNXbU8 “stackexchange post”

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