On the Infinitude of a Prime-Factor Recurrence

We study the prime-factor recurrence recorded as OEIS A242462, starting from 10 and using the least odd prime divisor at each step. Following the squarefreeness observation and conditional criteria of J. Lowell, we show that no term is a power of two; hence the recurrence continues indefinitely and is strictly increasing. The proof uses persistent divisors of the sixth term minus one and a congruence modulo \(13^2\). Three examples illustrate the recurrence and the finite arithmetic; an appendix records exact terms through index 20 with independently checkable factor data.

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-10-18
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23438788
Primary Topic
Analytic Number Theory Research
Type
preprint
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preprint

On the Infinitude of a Prime-Factor Recurrence

Lien-Hung Su
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Analytic Number Theory Research
preprint

On the Infinitude of a Prime-Factor Recurrence

Lien-Hung Su
preprint en

Abstract

We study the prime-factor recurrence recorded as OEIS A242462, starting from 10 and using the least odd prime divisor at each step. Following the squarefreeness observation and conditional criteria of J. Lowell, we show that no term is a power of two; hence the recurrence continues indefinitely and is strictly increasing. The proof uses persistent divisors of the sixth term minus one and a congruence modulo \(13^2\). Three examples illustrate the recurrence and the finite arithmetic; an appendix records exact terms through index 20 with independently checkable factor data.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (TW)
Analytic Number Theory Research
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